About Viral

Levi’s is hoping users will get Unbuttoned

Adweek reported on Wednesday that Levi’s is treading into some new territory with their “Live unbuttoned” campaign.  Hoping to follow in the footsteps of the hugely successful “Elf Yourself” campaign developed by EVB and Toy New York, Levi’s and EVB are asking a young male consumer to “unbutton their inner best”.

The San Francisco company has launched a new viral effort it hopes will attract young men to pass along videos of customized “beasts” emerging from the button-fly of Levi’s jeans. At Unbuttonyourbeast.com, visitors can choose from nine different animated characters with names like Trout Troutman, Paul the Pincher and Sock Nasty, then customize the beast’s message by calling a toll-free number. The effort, unsurprisingly, is geared to young men just out of college.
 
The e-mail arrives with the subject “Do you dare to unbutton my beast?” Users can customize the message to friends. The default borders on the risque, reading, “There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you, but I don’t want to freak you out. That’s why I’m sending my beast to do my dirty work.” Senders receive a confirmation e-mail that their message was sent — along with a 15 percent off coupon for jeans.
Source: Adweek

While the creativity and technical savy is definately there the interaction has some disturbing elements to it.  With a couple creatures appearing from the crotch of Levi’s 501 jeans looking like they just stepped out of B horror movie, it is unclear whether the young male target will really relate to this.  I bet some guys will get a kick out of it, but I would hazard a guess that most guys don’t relate their male member to a honkey tonk pig or a jewel wearing crab claw.

No one doubts that sex sells.  The ability for users to personalize the message by calling a toll free number has some appeal, but I’m not sure if girlfriends and boyfriends alike will appreciate the inivitable love note from the “Cookie The Cougar” character which looks like something out of Alien vs. Predator.

Time will only tell if Unbuttonyourbeast.com sees some viral success, but the saving grace for the site and the messaging is that this latest initiative is part of a broader itegrated campaign.  Would be players in social media take note.   

Levi’s has already seen some admittedly surprising results with the release of “Jumpin’ In” on YouTube with over 4.4 million views thus far.  “['Jumpin' In'] was supposed to be a small seeding activity,” said Robert Cameron, VP of Marketing, Levi Strauss, San Francisco. “We didn’t know it was going to blow up.”

The video is part of a series produced by Cutwater, the same people who produced the Ray-Ban “Catch” videos.  While no one at either the agency or Levi’s could have predicted its success the video has a universally appealing theme.  Backflips it seems resonate with young males and probably more so than crotch humor.

The positive take on these efforts is the willingness of Levi’s to jump in (no pun intented) to the new social media space as they try to reinvent a brand for their younger male target.  After all it is stories like these that inspired AboutViral.