Levis

Q1. How would you characterize Levi’s branding strategy in general? What are the positive aspects? Are there any negative aspects?

In general, Levi’s branding strategy having two strong characteristic. Firstly, Levi’s are relatively reactive as it changes its branding strategy after the sales or market share had declined. For example, they should have come out with the anti-wrinkle version of pants when they study that competitor are going to launch it instead of resisting the innovation because it did not cannibalize the Dockers core offer. When they realize that market share being stolen, it will be late to react by coming out the similar offer as it had being seen as point-of-parity and it is usually harder to reclaim back the customer with similar offering.

Secondly, Levi’s have the tendency of doing brand extension or creating a sub-brand instead of working hard on its current bread and butter.

However, looking at the positive aspect, by offering Dockers as a sub-brand instead of using Levi’s, this could halt some of the brand attributes that sometimes a brand does not wish to transfer to the new product offering as it is not compatible. Levi’s image is strongly associated with tough American jeans that do not fit the casual, comfortable image of the slacks (Dockers). Depending on the level of association, marketers able to control how closely the sub-brand would associate with the main brand.

The negative aspect of sub-branding would be the possible risk of cannibalization. For example, consumer might opt to purchase Dockers at the expense of Levi’s jeans instead of adding Dockers into their wardrobe. The marketing expenses and all other associated investment might not able to justify as same performance would able to achieve without creating a sub-brand.

Q2. Analyze the Dockers’ communication strategy at the time of the launch. How did it fit in with past Levi’s advertising efforts? How did it contribute to brand equity?

Levi’s communicate the...