Levi's banks on an Engineered return to favour

By IRENE CHAPPLE and REUTERS

Levi Strauss will launch a television and cinema advertising campaign for its Engineered Jeans in Australasia this week, proclaiming confidence in the local market despite the company's woes in the United States.

The Twisted campaign was created by British agency Bartle Bogle Hegarty, where most of Levi's Australasia TV commercials are created, and will run for 13 weeks.

The company's account for print advertisements is in the pitch process after Clemenger BBDO was dropped late last year.

The Engineered Jeans line, introduced in 2000, is promoted as having achieved "iconic status" within months of its launch, improving Levi's image in the eyes of transtasman youth.

The Twisted campaign, which picked up two Gold Lion awards at last year's Cannes Advertising Festival, features a male who twists off his female companion's head and swaps it for his own so he can use the ladies' toilet because the men's is locked.

Although figures are not available, the campaign is said to be Levi's most expensive to date.

That outlay flies in the face of the company's US cutbacks, announced this week. Six of its eight remaining plants have been closed and staff have been cut 20 per cent.

The nearly 150-year-old company, long a rugged symbol of the American West, also said it would close its remaining plant in San Francisco - ending nearly 100 years of jeans-making in the fabled firm's hometown.

"This is a painful but necessary business decision," said chief executive Philip Marineau.

"There is no question we must move away from owned-and-operated plants in the United States to remain competitive in our industry."

The company is struggling with its image in the US. Competition from more youth-oriented brands has cut into Levi's once-dominant market share.

Details of the plant closures had been anxiously awaited since the company said in January that its recovery plan would mean shutting down an undetermined number of factories.

Since sales started sliding in 1997, the firm has shut 24 plants in North America and five in Europe, costing about 15,000 jobs.

The privately owned company, which is aggressively pushing to make Levi's clothes must-have items for consumers again, has vowed to stabilise sales by the end of the financial year and increase turnover next year.

About 3300 employees out of a worldwide workforce of 16,600 will lose their jobs as a result of the closures.

In Australasia, Levi Strauss has about 100 employees, a manufacturing plant in Adelaide, and marketing offices in Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney and Auckland.

They will not be affected by the US cutbacks.