How Levi’s is tapping into TikTok, conscious consumerism and live shopping trends
Levi's Chief Marketing Officer Karen Riley-Grant joins the Marketer's Brief podcast to talk about how the brand balances marketing for both Gen Z shoppers and older brand loyalists.
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At 150, Levi Strauss & Co. might be an old brand, but it’s tapping into young trends. The brand has focused recent marketing on attracting younger Gen Z consumers who care about environmental issues such as sustainability, even as it continues to court the older customers who helped sustain Levi’s standing as a household name.
“We’re a very democratic and inclusive brand—we connect with folks from zero to 99,” Karen Riley-Grant, who was named chief marketing officer in 2021, said on a recent episode of the Marketer’s Brief podcast. “We have, in the last five to seven years, really sharpened our focus on Gen Z to make sure we’re cementing the fan base for the next 150 years—but we’re doing it in a way that’s not alienating our loyal consumer.”
However, courting both groups does not mean separate marketing campaigns, Riley-Grant said. Instead, it means improving Levi’s marketing strategy to make sure all content resonates across ages and platforms. Levi’s does a fair amount of copy testing across demographics and is working to be more efficient with its media strategy and production dollars. The company has seen its content needs increase by 500% in the last two years, according to Riley-Grant.
Levi’s works with a host of internal and external agency partners, Riley-Grant said. Next month, the brand plans to release a marketing campaign promoting its 150th anniversary—the push will be Levi’s first time working with Droga5, which it tapped last year to spearhead the new work.
One platform Levi’s is investing in is TikTok, which has been a big driver for the brand.
“We’ve really evolved our content development approach to ensure that we're almost slow dripping content to our consumers when they need it most versus larger bigger campaign drops that would have happened twice a year,” Riley-Grant said.
In addition to the upcoming campaign, Riley-Grant also discusses conscious consumerism and how driving awareness of the lifecycle of a pair of jeans can help engage customers. She also talks about live shopping and how Levi’s thinks about the metaverse.
