SUPERIOR JEANS

Strong advertising has put Levi-Strauss way ahead of its rivals and given its 501 brand cult status. Michele Simpson finds out where this leaves its competitors and what they are doing to win a share of the market

Every year in the UK, nearly 30 million pairs of jeans are snatched up by consumers eager to part with as much as 100 to squeeze into a pair of denims.

Stone-washed, five-pocket western, button fly, zip fly, double-stitched, bag-slack and 501s – every pair carries that all-important label on the rear and, if we are to believe the advertising, they can also come in handy towing cars, to rescue damsels in distress and, more importantly, to attract the opposite sex.

According to Nielsen research, released last week, one in four pairs of jeans will be Levi’s, which has managed to fight off its nearest rivals over the past ten years and gain more than 26 per cent share.

Such is its impact in the 780m British jeans market that Levi’s has set the trend in the UK not only for denim but in attracting a cult following for its advertising and commercial soundtracks.

At a recent test-market session for an upcoming beer commercial, several lads in their late teens were asked what appealed to them in television advertising.

Obviously keen to give the agency the “right” response (and drink as much beer as they could in an hour), several pointed out that the new advertisement should look and sound like one of the Levi’s commercials.

These comments did not impress the agency holding the session as it was not Bartle Bogle Hegarty, creator of the Levi’s commercials.

However, other jeans companies are adamant that it will only be a matter of time before the US company is toppled from its number one position.

Lee and Wrangler, both stable- mates in the VF Corporation, battle among themselves on the next plateau with about seven per cent and 7.3 per cent respectively.

Other brands such as Pepe, Diesel, Easy, Falmer, Lee Cooper and Calvin Klein are fighting it out in the lower ranks.

The top three jeans manufacturers have begun 1996 with large advertising campaigns. Levi’s has changed tack with its decision to move away from terrestrial TV for its new 501 “washroom” commercial (MW February 9).

Wrangler, which claims to be undisputed number two (but this depends on which statistics are quoted), has also put a different spin on its new 3.5m campaign breaking on February 20.

New marketing manager Tim Henshall says the 1996 and future assaults are shifting slightly to focus on a core market of early twentysomethings rather than targeting those in their late 20s.

“Our focus will be the 20 to 25 -year-old, a slightly younger customer, but we think we can do this without alienating the older 25 to 35 age group,” he says.

Wrangler last year took the decision to ditch supermodel Paula Abbott and its Ranching Out campaign for a theme of freedom of spirit and the fact that consumers get attached to their jeans.

The new Every Pair Tells a Story is still based around the western image because, as Henshall explains, it is dangerous for manufacturers like Wrangler and Lee to stray from their heritage.

Lee Europe and its UK division, having recently reshuffled its senior management and in the wake of closing its Belgium plant in Leper, has also built on its US roots with the Jeans That Built America slogan.

Lee’s latest campaign, through Grey Advertising, breaks on Friday (February 16). Wrangler’s new WCRS execution is, according to some, another “done-to-death” mid-western theme.

However, Lee UK marketing director Ian Morris says the company’s new commercials, which feature the stories of Gypsy Rose Lee and Jerry Lee Lewis, will concentrate on those in the early 20s and more on the growing female market.

“We have moved towards people-oriented advertising and away from ads like the Empire State Building commercial,” he says.

But jeans are sold in the UK to consumers who, let’s face it, will be braving snow and rain to reach public transport, rather than dodging bullets, trains, tumble weed and beautiful women.

Henshall says it is not all cowboys and Chevrolets. “We’ve adopted a theme we believe is appropriate, reflecting freedom of spirit and wide-open spaces, so the wearer doesn’t feel they need to conform,” he says.

Lee and Wrangler maybe two and three in the rankings but their future hangs in the balance, says Lee Cooper’s marketing controller Andrew Robinson.

“They are not moving with the times – they haven’t changed their image for the past two or three years,” he says.

Robinson, whose British jeans brand holds about a two per cent volume share of the jeans market, says it is Levi’s innovation and continuing ability to knit together a “great American brand”, supported by strong ads and catchy tunes, that has seen it outstrip its competition.

“Levi’s has left behind that western theme and has become very good at moving the goal posts and continually reinventing itself,” says Pepe UK’s marketing manager Phil Spurr.

As Levi’s UK marketing director Roy Edmondson says, “when the world zigs, we must zag”.

Building up a brand from about 12 per cent in the mid-Eighties has been a battle of giving consumers “freedom of choice” and being inconsistent, Edmondson claims.

Spurr’s jeans brand, with a volume share of about four per cent, has suffered a significant market share loss in the past ten years.

In 1990, Mintel statistics showed Pepe had a ten per cent value share of the market, second to Levi’s and about four per cent more than Wrangler.

Pepe now exploits its jeans as a brand with attitude. From its advertising to the techno rave music on its telephone hold line, it shows two-fingers to society and doesn’t “pull the wool over the eyes of consumers”.

Pepe’s core market is the 18-to-25 age group but, Spurr says, the advertising targets a younger market because “everyone wants to be younger than they really are”.

Pepe was furious last year when MTV refused to screen its new ad which featured a teenager taking part in the new youth fad of “tumbling” in launderette dryers (MW September 29 1995).

MTV was also fined 15,000 for screening another Pepe commercial last year which appeared to condone theft and hinted at youth suicide.

Henshall believes the danger for Levi’s is that those consumers who wear its jeans are going to grow up. “Their kids will hardly want to wear the same brand that their mums and dads are wearing.”

Spurr agrees. “I truly believe there is a cycle, but Levi’s has managed to last a long time at the top.”

However, Edmondson says the Levi’s brand appeals to the individual, giving a feeling of being “confident and sexy”, regardless of how old a wearer may be.

Lee Cooper, which has a much bigger following in France than in the rest of Europe, maintains its share in the UK through point-of-sale and staff incentive schemes.

Robinson says his company simply cannot compete with Levi’s, Wrangler and Lee which yearly launch large and expensive advertising campaigns.

Own-label jeans are also a growing market. However, they appeal to older consumers because younger wearers risk wearing a “naff” cheaper brand at the expense of appearing cool in front of their peers, says Spurr.

Lee and Wrangler both argue that they are concentrating more on their own positioning than each other, or on mounting any major assault on Levi’s.

But whatever the jeans brand the game is just the same – promoting an image to sell a pair of denims. And with fashion constantly changing, the question is how long Levi’s will continue to hold on to its top position.

Recommended

CAM misleads on commonality

Marketing Week

The latest Prospectus from CAM (Communication Advertising & Marketing Education Foundation) tells students that in light of Europeanisation “as Wales is to England so UK is now to EU”, and that the “home market for the UK’s goods and services

LNR to revamp services following ITN/GWR deal

Marketing Week

London News Radio’s two London stations, News 97.3 FM and News Talk 1152 AM, will relaunch after a long-awaited deal was struck last week with ITN and GWR. GWR is taking over responsibility for revamping the AM service, ITN for FM, GWR chief executive Ralph Bernard confirms. “Exact changes will be decided after comprehensive research,” […]

STREETS AHEAD

Marketing Week

A north London newspaper recently ran a story – headlined “Horrified mother’s cutting comment” – in which an angry local mother whose child used a pair of scissors distributed as part of an unsolicited mailshot to give himself a haircut. The scissors were sent out to underline a cable TV company’s advertising, based on the […]