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A
On the Spot is brought to you by System 1. You can predict and improve advertising's impact with System 1's Test yout Ad Platform. Test yout Ad is the creative effectiveness platform that measures consumers emotional responses, predicting your advertising's sales and growth impact. You can test Creative for linear and connected tv, digital out of home, audio and print channels from early concepts through to finished film plus access. System 1's test your ad premium with more than 150,000 ads in the database, you get the most accurate view of your category with results and rankings updated daily. So create with confidence. Visit system1group.com to learn more and buy Tracksuit Tracksuit is the affordable, always on brand tracking tool that helps marketers and agencies answer the question is what we're doing working? Companies pay $100,000 or more for brand tracking, which is out of the question for most modern brands. Tracksuit gives you brand tracking. You can afford their in house research. Experts do the heavy lifting using best in class practices to craft your survey and get your results fast. Check them out@gotracksuit.com that's gotracksuit.com now back to the show. Welcome to on the Spot, where planners talk about brands they've never worked on. This month we talk Levi. I think our conversation reveals something important, not just about these two brands, but about the sort of deeper cultural moment we're living through. These brands were built on a story of rugged individualism, of self determination, of the open road, the western frontier. And that story worked extraordinarily well for a very long time because there was enough of a shared sort of consensus about what all of that meant. That consensus is no longer clear. And so what you see these days, and what you see these brands doing with the Springsteen and the Harrison Ford spots for Jeep or Levi's unofficial uniform of progress positioning is essentially an attempt to sort of reconvene that consensus. But it doesn't seem to resonate as strongly. What's striking, though, is that the work that does connect Jeep's Groundhog Day, Levi's the Floor is Yours succeeds, as John Kenney said, by abandoning the grand narrative. It's relatable, it's joyful. It's not asking you to agree about what America means. It's just asking you to feel something small and human for a moment. And I think that's actually the lesson here. In a highly polarized environment, the brands that will win are not the ones that try to be the last shared story. They're the ones that avoid trying to hold a whole country together and just make something that is true. Both brands are rugged, individualistic American icons struggling to attract younger audiences or families. Both are trying to balance heritage with sort of cultural relevance. But maybe both need new ways of telling stories that connect with both the consumer and the product, as is suggested in this conversation. Look at the way Apple is turning product features into joyful, emotional, human stories. There are lessons to be learned there. This month, three new voices join me and System One, SVP of marketing, Vanessa Chin. I hope you enjoy it. So we are back this month with on the Spot. It's where planners talk about brands they've never worked on, and we all have opinions. Some of the opinions on this show are more informed than the others, so that's important to realize, I think. So we're not claiming that everything's factual, but we kind of represent this as, like, you know, people sitting at a bar having a drink, and whatever happens, happens. So. But great to have a couple of actually three new folks on the show today. Matthew Herbert is out on paternity leave in London, and he is replaced with the great Isaac Ciacki, whose partnerships lead for North America at Tracksuit. Isaac, welcome.
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B
Thank you very much.
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A
Fergus.
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B
Great to be here.
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A
Now, you're a regular fixture at all of our live shows, so it's good to see. We were together in San Francisco last Thursday night, which was, I thought, was a great show. So good to see you again.
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B
Yeah, good to see you. It's great to be finally bumped up from live ad re to official.
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A
You've gone from tier two to tier one, baby. Welcome. And we have Ashley Williams, who is SVP Experience Design, which is a nascent comm strategy within Spark Foundry in New York City. Ashley, we welcome as the first, I believe, the first representative of the media side of the equation. That's brilliant to have you.
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C
Thank you. No small job, but super excited to be here.
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A
Yeah, I'm really excited. And then John Kenny was previously chief strategy officer at FCB in Chicago. Great agency background. He is now at Eversana Intouch chief strategy officer there, a fellow Irishman. John, great to have you on the show again.
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D
Great to be back again, Fergus. Thank you so much.
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A
All right, so today we're talking about two brands, so two iconic American brands that, in my opinion, have things in common that we'll talk about and I think will surface as we go through. We're talking about Levi's and we're talking about Jeep. I've always been struck by the spots that Wieden did back in the day, 2008, 2009, I think it was. They used to do what I felt were just massively iconic moments that reflected youth culture, that reflected what was happening in society. And the Go Forth work out of Wieden I thought was an amazing signal of where that brand was going. It had always been known for
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B
a
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A
certain style of work, going back to the BBH days and going back to some of the great work that came out of fcb. John, what do you think about the journey that the brand has been on?
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D
We did not directly work on the circles work that was Simon White at FCB San Francisco, but we were aware they were. I was aware of it. And to your point, they picked up the brand after the Wyden and Kennedy work.
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A
That Go Forth work was, to your
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D
point, was so iconic and so beautiful. And from my perspective, and I think it's a problem with like a lot of these big national brands like Levos, like Jeep, is they become so iconic. Everyone goes into their Guinness surfer mode. Like this has got to be anthemic, it's got to be huge. And if there was a criticism of Go for that, it felt more, you know, this. I remember the BBH work from the 80s, like as a young kid, loving it.
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A
The original Laundromat.
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D
Yeah, amazing. And Go Forth was very cerebral. It was Bukowski, it was English grad students. So it was pretty niche. Even though I think the industry loved it, I did think it was for a brand that was built on Laundromat. It felt like the cool kids in Berlin.
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C
Yeah. And I think the other interesting thing is that it's also that time period, that post 2008 world was like, it was sort of this weird pressure valve and it kind of existed to, to release some of that tension that like, hey, this new generation is coming up in a world where like you can determine your own future. Like there is this, you know, you know, things are kind of crazy, but, you know, sort of self empowerment and like finding ways to make you feel like they can drive their future, which I thought was really, you know, really powerful.
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B
Yeah.
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A
And that was also the time of the mortgage crisis. So, I mean, it felt like society was falling apart back then. Isaac, do you, as a, as a guy who wasn't probably living here at that time, what is your perception of the brand?
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B
I mean, it's quite interesting, right, because like, you know of Levi's as being just deep American heritage. 150-year-old Jean Brand, you know, very much invented jeans as a concept for the modern wearer. And I think, you know, especially looking at that sort of go forth work, it gives me, it gives me sort of like, you know, Williamsburg gentrification vibes, right, where it's like trying to get something that was very American or like very authentic and applying a sort of new lens to it. And I think when we look at the funnel data, you know, did they go far enough in trying to make that more relevant for the modern consumer? Did they actually sort of like commit to that or were they sort of, was it a flash in the pan trying to drive short term sales? And I think there's questions there because as a brand they genuinely have a really impressive Funnel, right. Like 75% of folks who are aware of the brand then go on to consider it like hugely quality conversion down the funnel. And I think like when you look at that from a demographic perspective, especially coming into modern era, that is really 55 plus, right? People who remember the sort of, the pre. Go forth work people who remember the brand from the sort of 20 years ago, basically.
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A
It feels to me, John, that Covid killed or killed so many brands, but it killed Levi's because it introduced athleisure wear and casual wear. Denim sank during that period of time. But Levi's is still the number one brand in denim, closely followed by American Eagle and we'll talk about Sydney Sweeney in a while. But it's, it's been sort of a, it's been a rocky road for a brand that was iconic. But the, the sheen seem, seems to be off the brand a bit.
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D
It's, I mean, first of all, it's your point. It's the number one brand. It's probably to your point, Isaac, the biggest in terms of consideration. But there are so many choices and we all have four or five pairs of jeans in our, in our closet. But I think the, the bigger challenge I think for, for Levi's was how do you be an all American brand in such a polarized time? And if you think about the, the, the go forth work to your point, Ashley, like so optimistic, so forward looking and then you're emerging from like Covid, where people aren't wearing jeans and we've been tearing each other apart for the last four years and we got another like five or six to go. God knows what's happening next. But like straddling, you know, the average American consumer is a 40 year old with a high school education. But they need to bring in the new generation. How do you continue to straddle that brand? That customer base is really, really Hard. And we've seen brands try and fail.
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C
And then even with the go forth work, it's like you're still. That was still a time where you could have one large hero film or central message and cascade it to the masses. And, you know, but like now, to your point, we're polarized then. We're probably even more polarized now. There is no sort of central media cascading mechanism. TV isn't that thing anymore. And there is no one sort of winning message that's going to. Across large groups of audiences. So, like, how do you do that when you're a big iconic brand like Levi's trying to. To sort of move that big, you know, mountain?
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E
I was really struck by what Isaac was talking about in terms of if you're aware that you'll consider in looking across the brands, you know, looking at Gap and American Eagle and otherwise, Levi's is absolutely standing out from a fluency standpoint. So in terms of them bringing generational heritage, some of the western inspired styling and things of that nature, they have by far the strongest fluency scores out of anyone in the category. So what they're putting out there is being recognized as uniquely Levi's. From that, though, how do you can. There isn't necessarily a standout brand who's emotionally connecting with the audience at large, because these are massive brands. They do need to appeal to the masses and there really isn't. Even with the strength of Beyonce, you're not seeing any of the brands in the category really emotionally connect at any significant level at this point.
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A
So one of the things I was thinking about, to Ashley's point, things have changed, audiences have changed. I think almost the denim category changed. It went and chased fashion versus chasing cool. It was sort of reflecting the social media of everything where it's hard to see that more authentic ruggedness, individualism in Levi's that was there before. Now it's like it's got Beyonce, it's going for mass appeal, and it's sort of chasing fashion rather than sort of more than sort of reflecting its own DNA, maybe it's struggling with that balance,
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B
which I think that's really interesting point, right, because like, if we look at the perception that comes through really strongly for Levi's, it's actually what Vanessa was saying, which is that sort of traditionalness, that ruggedness, that sort of more Western Americana sort of appeal of the brand, which I think, you know, 150 years, it's really hard to shake that. And so when you sort of think about denim more Broadly and kind of, you know, the American Eagle conversation as sort of aside. Right. You know, they really are the category essentially, like Levi's is synonymous with jeans. And I think it's really hard to become, you know, fashionable when you effectively are the category. And so you really have to do a category job is what we're sort of seeing.
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D
I mean, to your point, Isaac, like you're selling to a new generation the jeans their dad is wearing.
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B
Yeah.
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D
Like, it's a really tough setup. And I think, you know, when I look at the, the Beyonce work, to your point, it feels more celebrity driven and she is huge. And she creates her own. She's her own, like, force. And there is something always really bold about partnering with a celebrity that big. But it felt a little far from the brand. I was excited to see how they in the, in the more recent super bowl spot, how they were able to straddle generationally, demographically.
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C
I'm back. Get up off of that thing.
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A
I feel good.
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D
I mean, it was a master class in big tent brand building, where be it you blue collar, be you country and western, Bruce Springsteen,
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A
They covered everyone.
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D
While also, I thought just being an amazing product demo spot where guess what, our behinds look great in Levi's and that red tab was present the entire time. So I, I was really impressed with the super bowl spot just by virtue of it's a really tough ask. What do we, how do we string all these people together? But they did it in a really branded way, in a really product centric way.
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A
Vanessa, how did that, how did that spot test?
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E
It's hard to emotionally connect to butts. We as humans connect.
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D
Not all of us, Vanessa.
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A
Clearly,
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E
from what the butts did and Levi's tag, it had a 95% fluency. So everyone knew it was for Levi's. It did have emotional intensity and that's really drawn from the nostalgia and the music and the celebrity cues. But emotionally, out of a 5.9, it scored a 2.3. And that really is. When you have a lot of fast cuts and you have obscure scenes of a body part, it's really difficult for people to emotionally connect. That can be problematic from a long term brand building perspective because you're not really building that strong connection to Levi's.
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A
I mean, actually from a comm strategy point of view, were there things that you saw that maybe we didn't see? Were you seeing anything that they did that that you thought was really interesting?
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C
I mean, I think they, I think, I think there are a couple lenses on that One, it's, it's audiences. So, like, I think Eli has an interesting position and that like they sort of separated themselves from highly targeting demographics and going really all in on psychographic audiences. And so it allows them to play in the space you're talking about. You can reach across all these different times eras, what cool looks like to different people on different people at different times. But who is it really for? I think that's really tricky to nail and I don't think that spot made me feel like it was necessarily for me. I wonder if there are other audiences that felt the same way. I think in terms of the way that they allowed the campaign to extend, they sort of, you know, their big hero spot is obviously in the Super Bowl. But then they did cut downs and they did, you know, they drilled in on some of those specific artists and new artists and did like six second, you know, extensions across social and allowed the campaign to live. And so I think that was their attempt to try to drill in on specific audiences, but I'm not sure if it worked.
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A
I mean, their CMO talks about them as being the unofficial uniform of progress. I mean, it feels very Johnnie Walker, like John. I'm curious about when that work left Wieden and it went to fcb. What was the thinking behind that, strategically? Do you know?
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D
I think the big part of it was getting back to that BBH work, which was about cool, which is about sensuality, which is about sex appeal, and far more like Everyman. And it was all about dance. And I think that one of the things they had stuck with pretty consistently since that work in 2017 was that focus on dance. They've gotten a lot more butt focused. Vanessa, to your point, and so the red tab is a lot more central. The one thing that's interesting is back in 2017, we were still living in somewhat optimistic times and they were bringing in everyone from all over the world. South Asia, Middle East, East Asia, the Americas. It is interesting to see the brand almost have to retreat a little bit and go, okay, let's just try and defend a generic American identity that we can all jump in on. And that's the minimally viable thing we can do as a brand because this is a very American spot, whereas previously it was far more global and inclusive in how they positioned themselves.
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A
I mean, that seems to be what they're doing even today. I mean, that spot called the Floor is Yours, which is basically young people getting off the sofa and dancing around the room. I just, I struggle with trying to understand where that fits into this idea of the unofficial uniform of progress and how it really drives distinction versus non Levi brands in the category like Gap. It feels like everybody's chasing culture rather than creating it.
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B
I mean, I think to your point earlier, Fergus, right, like the athleisure boom of the COVID years and, you know, denim at large being on the wane. It's, you know, all of these brands are doing really a category job where you're bringing people back to denim versus losing share to Lululemon or, you know, other sort of brands that are, you know, finding their way into the workplace. Right. Like you've got people wearing joggers to the office, whereas the. The casual denim used to be the sort of default. And I think that's kind of where you're starting to see a lot of the actual competition these days.
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A
Yeah. Yeah.
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D
Maybe the scary thing is that in today's world, jeans is when you dress up. Because to your point, I.
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A
It.
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D
It would be a stretch for me, Fergus, to see this brand as a progress brand, like Johnnie Walker, but maybe the CMO is pointing to what's happening to the clothing category and the trousers category, that this is what people wear on formal occasions, and that's some sort
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A
of a fashion progression.
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E
Back to hard pants.
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B
Yeah, Right.
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A
Hard denim.
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E
You know, sometimes it can be tricky to test old spots, and that actually scored the highest out of everything that I tested for Levi's.
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A
This is the 2025 version, or the earlier.
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E
The floor is yours, the one that you sent through.
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A
That's. That's 2025.
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E
Yeah. At 3.7, that's pretty good. Yeah. So it. It had the strongest positive emotions out of any of the Levi's work that we tested. And actually, when I look across gap, American Eagle, JCPenney, J. Crew, by far the most positive emotions connected to that specific execution versus anything else.
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A
So, Isaac, what's the net. Net from a brand point of view? And when you look at the category, how are they comparing?
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B
I mean, Levi's kind of going back to that original point. They are the category. Right? Like, the category penetration for this category is 91%. They have 75, 80% of it. From an awareness standpoint, their conversion through the funnel is more or less straight down. Right. Like, they don't necessarily have a funnel, more like a waterfall. Going from awareness to consideration to. Almost everybody has a pair of Levi's in their closet. The question then becomes, except young people. Except for young people. Exactly.
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A
Millennials. Maybe the category has gotten smaller and they're still leading a smaller Category.
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B
Yeah, I mean, exactly. It's kind of like that is concentrated at 55 and 18 to 24 is under indexing against almost every other brand in the category. So it's a very interesting business problem, right, where you've got actually a very efficient marketing funnel if you want to make money. But that doesn't necessarily translate to, okay, what about in 10, 20, 30 years time? How do we make sure that that remains an efficient business model over time?
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A
I wonder actually whether that CMO is sort of struggling with what a lot of brands, and I think Johnnie Walker is struggling with it too, with that sort of idea of the unofficial uniform of progress. The definition of progress is very different for different people. And we're at a time when society feels like it's tearing apart at the seams and if you take a stand, you become a target. I wonder if everything's on hold now with the sharpness of progress until progress becomes a little bit more national or a little more mass than it might be today.
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C
Yeah, it's a weird position to be in, right, because it's like you want to cut through, but how do you do that when that involves taking a really, really big risk as a brand? And like, to your point this, we're in times that are unprecedented. But, but like, so then as a, as a brand, where do you decide to fight and where you decide to run? And I think you can't, you can't be everything to everyone. And I can only imagine, you know, the Levi strategy team sitting in a room and sort of trying to figure out, you know, how do we appeal to all these different audiences and say something without knocking up, without saying too much, you know, we don't want to take a side, but we want to feel like we're for people who do want to take a side. And so like, how do you slice all those little itty bitty cuts into the apple and still expect it to taste great? So I think that's the tricky thing that they were trying to do there and I, you know, it's, it's hard when you're doing a spot, especially going, you know, going back to the super bowl spot. You're doing a spot where you want to try to appeal to different audiences over different timelines while keeping an eye on the youth, but still not have it feel navel gazing. And I think, I think that that's a little bit of what, you know, how the spot landed for some folks. And so I don't know if they've accomplished in trying to do all those things. I don't know which piece of that they did really well.
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D
But I wonder actually, I think that's such a good point. It makes me wonder with the floor is yours. Maybe we just need to recalibrate what progress looks like. And instead it's a great social spot. It's basically a bunch of kids getting together and having a great time and that especially in such an atomized phone centric culture, getting a dance going is just more than anything, this is a social brand. This is about connection. This is about if you go right back to the BBH work walking into a laundromat and everyone falling in love with you and they need to kind of connect to that rather than some higher falutin what it means to be American and what it means to be a progress today.
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C
Totally agree.
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E
You know, we're talking about cars later, but you know, I feel, I felt that way that about VW coming back with drivers wanted it very much during this super bowl timeframe. It very much felt like the kind of work that rallies a younger audience into really big feelings, really big positive feelings. So I think that that's a little bit what the floor is yours was bringing to the table. I know we're probably going to move on, but when it comes to the Beyonce work, I actually do think I'm not normally an advocate for, you know, giving handing over your brand to a celebrity, but the way that they used her was really interesting. They were trying to connect her plus her music, but then also bringing back Launderette. And that was I think a lot to. To take in and I think there is an opportunity to use her. They actually didn't even use her other than her music. They never had her speak. And I actually think that that was maybe a missing component to translating that work in a more way for the audience.
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C
I gotta say something on Beyonce really quick on that note. It's like I thought was really interesting to me is that the Beyonce work almost felt like Beyonce spots with Beyonce and Levi's rather than Levi's spots because there were so many Easter eggs that it's very Beyonce. It was aligned perf with her, you know, second album. And Reimagined was the type, the name of the campaign like it was just like it was a Beyonce. And I think for Beyonce fans, they really got that. And also Beyonce doesn't talk, so it didn't feel unnatural to not hear her speak. I think if you're a fan, if you're looking for the Levi lens, it does feel a Little awkward, though.
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A
All right, so let's switch to the other brand, Jeep. And I thought it was a great transition there because what Ashley was saying about sort of earnestness and you have to be. We were talking about how it can't be too polarizing. It's interesting that Jeep did the Harrison Ford super bowl spot, which was all about taking a stand, and they managed to sort of walk on that blade without getting cut. Freedom is yes or no or maybe freedom is for everybody, but it isn't free.
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D
It's earned.
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A
There are real heroes in the world, but not the ones in the movies.
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D
Real heroes are humble. They're not driven by pride.
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A
Pride is a terrible driver. And then they did it, which was the second one that they did with another Bruce Springsteen. Bruce Springsteen, of course. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That. Another example of where they were able to take a stand. But I think what Levi's has in common with Jeep is this sort of ruggedness, this individualism, this sort of American icon, which I think is very, very connected. The reason Jeep is on the list this month was because of a conversation we've had many times on the show, which is the automotive category is arguably one of the most generic and from a communications point of view of any category, it's just so dull. And so the new Jeep work, especially the new Grand Wagoneer work, which will drop in. When I saw that, that sent a signal to me was high dive. And Jeep, are they sending a message that they're trying to break these sort of conventions of automotive? Introducing the new Jeep Grand Wagoneer. It's rugged and refined with room for
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E
the whole family and room to make a family.
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C
That's right. This baby is for making babies, which is why it was. It was named the best car to have sex in by a real website. And then my drape flies off and
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E
I'm like, oops, sorry.
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D
Who's she again? Eliza Schlesinger, a comedian.
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A
She sent me an email that she had an idea that was going to tickle our carburetor.
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C
Yes.
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D
Well, Eliza, thank you for coming right in here unannounced. Absolutely, yes. We love surprises.
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A
It's just that the Jeep Grand Wagon
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B
year is for families.
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A
It's not for.
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E
Families are great, but this is historic. You guys were named best car to have sex in.
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A
What were some of your reactions, guys, to when you saw that spot originally?
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C
Can I start from the media perspective?
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A
Yes, please.
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C
I thought so it actually launched on YouTube and it was like a three minute spot. So, like huge risks on both of those fronts. Which I thought was really cool. I think the interesting thing about that though is like, so the way that the scripts are written and the tone of it are very much written for social so they could be shareable. It would sort of cut through. And the fact that YouTube is where long form content is really being consumed allowed them to sort of feel safe taking a risk, putting a three minute spot in there, which I also thought was really brave. I think naturally there's risk there that like the way that people consume, consume content on YouTube isn't necessarily the way they consume ads on YouTube. So I'm curious to see, you know, how well it worked. But I thought it was a really brave move and really thoughtful.
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D
That's so interesting. Actually I didn't realize it launched on YouTube. I mean it was such a refreshing break from the Bruce Springsteen, Harrison Ford era where it just felt like being stuck in a family Thanksgiving being lectured by your grandfather or the old uncle. And I mean the Bruce Springsteen one, which again, if you're trying to call for unity, but your spokesperson is clearly aligned with the new president at that time, Joe Biden. It's off to a bad start. It really was meandering and depressing. It was just kind of, again, this was the brand that liberated Europe and here we are just kind of moping around in central Kansas somewhere. Harrison Ford was a little bit better. At least he had a little bit of product placement in there. But again, really meandering. The, the Eliza Schlesinger work in particular just made me laugh out loud. I thought the. And the more recent one made me laugh out loud. My, my only concern is it feels like really funny advertising and I would struggle to remember what brand actually did it. And, and this is like a brand you. The automobile category is a high consideration category. You need to get it right. It's a huge investment. You're in a feature war. And if you look at the old like Audi, bring in the clowns spot, there was a lot of great entertainment there, but also a lot of product education. And I would say love the work. Really makes me laugh. I worry about the branding and I think they could do more with the
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B
product feature stuff just to back that up, right? Like cheap, you know, really, really high awareness. 7 out of 10 people who know the brand don't even put it on their shopping list, right? So massive job to be done in order to kind of like move it up the list and be in the same consideration set as the RAV4, as the Honda Pilot, all those sort of mid sized SUVs which are just taking over sales.
- [34:55]
E
I have to plug our work with System 1 and eBay fish the cost of dull. We have an absolute epidemic of neutrality and the auto category is one of the worst offenders. Product specs, you know, all left frame cues. Every vehicle is driving on a winding road up a hill. And so I have to commend Jeep for, you know, whether or not it's the Groundhog Day or the Grand Wagoneer. My personal favorite, Billy Bass, the fish one with the bear. It, it is working for them and it's really, really interesting work specifically for Wagoneer. Since Ashley mentioned it, we did test the three minute long version and we saw a few things. John, you don't need to worry about their branding. Really, really high score. So overall branding was at a 93. But also their fast flip flop, their fast branding was there. The, you know, the sexual connotations and the storyline do lead itself to emotional intensity. So a combination of fast branding, emotional intensity has an exceptional chance for short term sales lift. So I think that's why we see a lot of Wagoneers actually on the road. But in terms of long term brand building, it did suffer from the length of it and ability to be okay with the overt sex mentions throughout the entire. To get the entire country to rally behind work. That's. That is fairly difficult. So it had a 2.6 but we've seen work. Billy Bass is 3.3, Groundhog Day 5.2. When we see Jeep, set aside those category tropes and bring in humor and bring in story. It's really working for them and I'm excited to see what happens next in
- [36:50]
C
terms of the fact that like it sits in my mind anyway like a weird part of the category. Like it's like, you know, how do they signal luxury but still feel cheap enough and it's really expensive and has all of these. How do you signal luxury without feeling too European? I guess, you know, is their, their sort of goal. But like it also needs to think. I appreciate that it broke through in the sense that like they weren't just talking about the features because they know that that's what all of these sort of, you know, key luxury players were going to do. I wonder long term the effects that, that it'll have though.
- [37:28]
B
I think it's kind of interesting like looking at that sort of the Fisher ad, I call it the Billy Bass ad specifically. Right. Like when we look at their brand perceptions, it's really about reliability is hugely negative for the brand. And so if you have that sort of like 140 safety features sort of shoehorned in at the end of that spot. The end of three minutes as well. I think to your point, Vanessa, around long term brand building, if reliability is a problem, going up against the European car manufacturers who are, you know, maybe not known for reliability, but have sort of like gone pretty hard on the, on that sort of messaging for a long time. You know, I think there's a big job to be done there and I'm not sure how well that spot is actually addressing that.
- [38:15]
D
I do think though, to Isaac's point, the, and the reliance in the last like 2 seconds, 3 seconds on a roll of safety features and a quick line that will take care of you inside, outside, you really have to pay attention to kind of get the brand connection to the spot. And it's a, it's a, I think the high dive work in many ways is a huge leap forward from where they are and bravo to them to being able to sell it in. Because again, they came. This is Fiat, the old Fiat Chrysler company. They made, imported from Detroit. They made, you know, it's, it's halftime in America. God bless a farmer and sometimes farmer and sometimes when you're in that kind of legacy company, everyone wants to make the big epic spot. And now they have spots that I think could be more product centric than they are. I feel like the Bill Murray spot every day could have been a different feature, but the Schlesinger spot definitely, I think was probably the best at pushing the different products and making them the hero. But Billy Bass, which I loved, it just, I would really have to pay attention to figure out that it's got something for families. So I think they just need to lean into telling great product stories in the same way that you see Apple. Apple's been telling great product stories for the last 20 years and they did their 1984 spot, they did their think different spot, but now it's just great product storytelling, advertising in a way that's iconically Apple.
- [40:03]
A
Yeah, that's fair to say. So let's go around the table here and pick. Just give me a summary thought for each of the two cases. So we have Levi's, we have Jeep. What sort of strikes you about them and what do you think they need
- [40:24]
E
to get, they need to address from a Levi's perspective. I really am excited for them that the work that they're putting out there is uniquely them. I think they have a huge potential to combat the idea of fast fashion. I think they've Always brought quality and heritage to the table. So I'd like to see how can they bring that emotional connection and that storytelling into their work, you know, obviously, beyond the obscure butts and make us feel something from a Jeep perspective. I actually believe that their work is putting the car at the center. I believe that they're in the right direction of bringing storytelling that's making you feel something, you know, with the Billy Bass work and otherwise. I think that, you know, maybe they're a little bit disjointed on how many things that they're trying to do with all of their vehicles, but. But frankly, I think that they're headed in the right direction, and I'm excited to see what they do next.
- [41:23]
A
Nice, John.
- [41:25]
D
I think the, you know, the Levi's work, the thing that you said, Vanessa, that I was really struck with, was the take the floor work and just the social component of the brand. I feel like that is progress right now in a more atomized world, and they could really own that. They're so well branded. I think as long as they. As long as they are always focused on the red tap, the brand will always come through. I think for Jeep, they're so close. I think it's just really about just dialing up the product, making the product part of the story rather than adjacent to the story. I think they're in the right direction and they're super close.
- [42:08]
A
Isaac?
- [42:09]
B
Yeah, Levi's, I think, is really interesting. They've got so much to work with. They've got a really strong sort of brand that they can do a lot with. And I think it's really, to me, probably taking a page out of Nike's book, right, where. Trying to sort of start to touch more of culture in more ways beyond just sort of a very broad super bowl spot. And I'm curious to hear more of what you think, Ashley, maybe in another session, because I think, like, they have an opportunity to kind of, like, really own different parts of culture in a way that's really hard to do, but only they can do. And then I think for Jeep, it's an interesting brand. They've got a big job to do to kind of get those sales back up. And I think sort of echo Vanessa and John and really about going hard on that product and how does that work for families? What is Ford doing that's making that work? How can they have Bronco and, you know, their entire other inventory that sort of people buy? Whereas Jeep is struggling, and I think going hard on product is probably where
- [43:17]
A
they need to go, Ashley?
- [43:21]
C
Yeah, I think Levi's is challenged when it comes to younger audience is not about not getting noticed, as we've talked about, but really being felt as relevant. And so that really comes down in my mind to how do you participate, keyword, participate in culture now and not just sort of project it. So performing youthfulness just isn't going to work. Chasing trends with a Gen Z audience is not. It's not going to build trust with them. So how do you really show that lived, ongoing originality rather than relying on just the nostalgia or celebrity for Jeep, I think it's about clarity. Again, obviously we don't have an awareness problem or a capability problem, but like driving clarity about what they're about, who they're for, and translating that into ways that showcase what people need now, not for the sake of escapism or ruggedness, but actual confidence in real life. I think that can translate to different audiences in powerful ways if they do that. And finally, just a quick note on the Americana thing. I think that this is an interesting time to be a brand trying to convey what it means to be about Americana now and what does that look like? And I think it really comes down to credibility and the credibility that you earn. That feels like a really truly American concept. I don't think that a lot of brands are nailing that yet, but it's going to be interesting to see how that, you know, this continues to play out over time.
- [44:51]
A
It's actually Williams, SVP Experience Design at Spark Foundry in New York City. John Kenny is chief strategy officer at Arisana Intouch. He's here in Chicago. Isaac C. Did you enjoy it, Isaac, your first time here?
- [45:04]
B
I loved it. I loved it. It's a great conversation. It's always fun to, you know, talk about ads from the cheap seats and also talk about American brands. When I'm not American.
- [45:15]
A
Okay. Isaac is partnerships lead in North America for Trek Suit. And Vanessa Chin, SVP marketing for System 1. She's here in Chicago. Thank you all. This was wonderful. I appreciate you guys being here. And we will see everybody on the next episode.