Levi’s prompts consumers to ‘buy better’ jeans for the planet

The effort marks the latest expansion of Levi’s global ‘Buy better, wear longer’ campaign, which was initiated in April 2021 and urges consumers to repurpose and re-wear their clothes, as well as highlighting Levi’s efforts to lessen its environmental impact.

The new short film follows Levi’s most iconic jean, the 501, as it transforms from the 1960s to the present and changes with each decade and individual owner’s style. “The campaign speaks to Levi’s legacy, durability and appeal to a broad global audience,” Levi’s global chief marketing officer Karen Riley-Grant said in a statement. “A pair of Levi’s ages beautifully, engaging generation after generation, with a few tweaks and changes. Timeless and versatile, yet fashionable, no matter the decade. This message is more relevant today than ever before, when we’re all thinking about how we can contribute to a more sustainable future.”

AKQA’s San Francisco studio and production company Megaforce handled.

Since its inception, the mission of ‘Buy better, wear longer’ has been to make fashion more sustainable and durable while also resonating with Levi’s target gen Z audience. This is why the brand has brought on climate-conscious influencers – such as climate activist Xiye Bastida, entrepreneur Melati Wijsen and YouTuber Emma Chamberlain – to share their own sustainability stories. “These kids have been living with climate crisis their entire lives,” Chris Jackman, vice-president of global consumer marketing at Levi’s, told The Drum last year. “They get it and understand the urgency. We want to connect with them to help us with the message that we’re putting out there and to try and get a movement going in terms of apparel consumption.”

The brand sees ‘Buy better, wear longer’ as an extension of its mission to make their overall manufacturing process more sustainable. In addition to the campaign, the brand says it has invested in materials that require less water, such as cottonized hemp and organic cotton, launched a resale platform called SecondHand and hired in-store tailors to repair and repurpose garments. “Reconfiguring supply chains takes time, but we have found partners that are as concerned about their footprint, and are as excited to experiment as us,” Levi’s head of global product innovation Paul Dillinger said in a statement. “These collaborations have allowed us to introduce more circularity in how we make our products.”

The campaign will be activated primarily through digital and social, with some supportive retail and out-of-home (OOH) material.

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