Innovation without marketing
In San Francisco, a bunch of us were talking about where we buy our jeans. I brought up the conversation because my latest pair of jeans ripped on the plane on my way to our design tour. They were 6 months old. Paul commented that he gets his jeans at Levi’s. I forgot the last time I had a pair of Levi’s, maybe when I was 8.
It happened that there is a huge Levi’s store in Union Square in San Francisco. I walked in there to see what this jeans have become since the last time I wore one. To my surprise they had really nice, up to date models and not just the classic 501 model. Needless to say, I tried on 8 pairs and finally walked out with one.
The next day Maeke and I run into the Levi’s headquarters. They had a museum of how the company has been innovating the way we fit into our jeans and delivering the best quality jeans available. We saw a short video of how the designers get inspiration from jeans worn a century ago. This video showed a process that assures that the new product is an innovative one.
After everything I saw, Levi’s would qualify as an innovative company but is it truly innovative if the people around them don’t even know they are.
May 29th, 2008 at 12:03 am
Perhaps you can write a little bit more about what you saw.
May 29th, 2008 at 3:00 am
There was one part which displayed real letters from customers (dated back to the 70s/80s as well as recent) about how much/why they love their levi’s jeans. I thought the personal stories really gave an emotional look on the company and its products, a creative way of marketing.
Then there were two screens that repeatedly played a short 10 minute video about designers visiting levi’s archives, where old, worn clothing was kept. The designers got their inspiration from these old, usually torn jeans and shirts. A creative way to use old models to design improved, new, modern models, while sticking with the classic levi’s image.
Lastly, there was a visitor’s book, where people could leave any comments about the company, the products etc. I was reading through a few pages, and there were, again, multiple positive and inspirational comments per day. Like Maria mentioned, it gave me a new outlook on Levi’s, but I wouldn’t have known about it if we hadn’t accidentally run into the headquarters..
May 31st, 2008 at 2:21 pm
Thanks Maeke. From the displays we could sense that the company uses a great deal of inspiration and it results in really neat jeans collections. What really shocked me is that I have never been aware of how “cool” and different Levi’s is (other people can agree with me on this one). It is a shame that for a company that has been around since the 19th century to not show the world the legacy and the future of the company.
Like Maeke said, if we didn’t run into the Levi’s headquarters we would have never been aware of what they have to offer and what they are all about. We are used to having innovative companies out in the media but Levi’s keeps a low profile and we wondered why is that the case.