The thinking behind a new, irreverent campaign for Levi’s Re-Issued 569 Jeans is straightforward: People are attached to their jeans. This concept is absurdly exaggerated, to the point where the pants are so valued that they are likened to a donated human organ.
Levi’s agency, TBWA/Chiat/Day, San Francisco, created a three-part commercial helmed by directing collective Traktor of bicoastal/international Partizan. Levi’s will make its Super Bowl advertising debut with the work, which will roll out with a :15 prequel teaser spot slated to air before the Big Game, a :30 broadcast during the action and a post-game :15, which revisits the spot’s main character.
There is also a :60 version of "Jeans Donor" that presents the story in its entirety. The spot opens on the aftermath of a strange, unfortunate accident involving a little kids’ merry-go-round, the kind you’d see in front of a K-Mart.
Here, the setting is a seedy traveling carnival and the accident victim is a grown man lying motionless on the ground. Given that he’s about 30 feet away from the merry-go-round, near a broken-off pony, viewers are left to wonder just how fast the ride was cranked up to throw him that far. (The :15 prequel spot supports this idea by showing the guy riding the pony, shouting—in a Swedish accent—"Faster! Faster! I’m a cowboy!")
An emergency medical team arrives on the scene, racing over to the unconscious horseman; in the background, a cop can be seen talking to the ride attendant—an older guy in cowboy-style garb. On a mobile phone one emergency medical technician relays information to a doctor at a hospital. "We’ve got a white male—he’s fallen off the white pony," she says. Her reference to "the" white pony implies that everybody in town knows about the perilous ride and has anticipated just such a tragedy.
The second paramedic takes a wallet from the victim’s pocket. He reads its contents and blurts out, "Oh my gosh—he’s a donor!" Back at the hospital, the doctor mobilizes the medical team for action. "We got a donor; let’s move!" he barks.
Cut back to the paramedics scurrying to a medical helicopter—one carrying a refrigerated cooler presumably containing precious, life-giving cargo. A frantic race against time ensues, as the chopper flies past the panoramic view of a bridge. Later, an ambulance screeches to a halt at a suburban home.
The medics burst into a basement bedroom where a lanky teenager wearing boxer shorts and socks lies curled up on the bed, facing the wall. Obviously in bad shape, the kid coughs softly. The teen slowly sits up and a paramedic opens the cooler, marked "Donor Material," to present him with the contents: a pair of Levi’s Re-Issued 569s. Clutching the pants and speechless with joy, the kid starts to cry. The paramedic helps him put on the jeans. The tag comes up: "Levi’s Re-Issued 569 Jeans. Make Them Your Own."
The spot cuts back to the now-pantless jeans donor, who awakens as the merry-go-round (sans white pony) is spinning. He sits up, dazed, to survey his own bare legs with confusion. As if this weren’t discomfiting enough, the strange ride attendant sits in a chair, observing him.
Like several previous spots in the client’s overall "Make Them Your Own" campaign—namely, "Fix It," for 569 Loose Straight Jeans (SHOOT Top Spot, 9/1/00, p. 10); and "Badger," for Levi’s Cords (SHOOT Top Spot, 11/24/00, p. 10)—"Jeans Donor" resulted from a product initiative. In this case, the task was to promote the Re-Issued finish—which lends a vintage, previously worn look to the denim—now available in the 569 brand. (In contrast to those in the spot, the real jeans have not been worn by someone else.)
"[Levi’s] wants to talk a lot about individual products now," related art director/copywriter Jeff Labbe, "because a lot of people think Levi’s is just 501s." In addition to Labbe, the creative team comprised creative director/art director/copywriter Jon Soto, executive creative director Chuck McBride, executive producer Jennifer Golub and assistant producer Jennifer Wallrapp.
What was intended to be one spot expanded to include prequel and sequel ads in the course of collaborating with Traktor on the shoot day. Said Labbe, "We thought, ‘Since we’re going to be here anyway, why don’t we try putting the guy on the merry-go-round?’ It just happened as we went along." Soto added that the unscripted prequel and sequel spots were "30 seconds of happy accidents."
The creatives praised Traktor’s light-handed touch on what could have been a rather morbid story. Soto noted that they were wary of depicting the tale in too realistic a manner. "It could have been a dark, scary spot," he pointed out. "When we first talked about directors, even David Fincher’s name came up. Jeff and I thought that could really be the wrong choice for this."
Traktor head of production Jim Bouvet, who also served as the line producer, said that the original idea involved an injured guy wedged up a tree in the wake of an auto accident. "There were a lot of stipulations by the client that this accident not be too gruesome, not involve bloodshed," reported Bouvet. "That opened up a can of worms regarding, ‘Do these jeans come off a dead guy?’ So we tried to think of other types of accidents and decided to go for the absurd."
Traktor filmed "Jeans Donor" in Merritt and Hope, two cities outside of Vancouver, where they were directing the aforementioned Levi’s "Badger" spot at the same time. The accident scene was shot in Merritt, in a dirt lot that conveys the feel of a sleepy town in the middle of nowhere. The location was next to an area where motor homes empty their sewage. "We said, ‘This is perfect,’" recalled Bouvet. "It was pretty dismal."
The directors, Ulf Johansson and Mats Lindberg, applied a number of touches that lent the spot its offbeat flavor. Sharp-eyed viewers might spot one subtle joke: In the kid’s bedroom, a Polaroid picture of a pair of jeans is taped to the wall. A more evident bit of goofiness is showing the guy thrown 30 feet by the merry-go-round. "If we had made it too far a distance, you would have thought it was ridiculous," said Soto. "Here, it’s just far enough to make you think it’s a little odd."
