Levi’s Campaign for Harvey Milk Highschool
ByLevi Strauss & Co just recently launched the “Give them hope Now” Campaign. This campaign is to raise money for the Hetrick-Martin Institue, which is a non profit organization that that supports the Harvey Milk High School. As you can imagine the Harvey Milk High School is dedicated to support and help gays, lesbians, transgenders, and bisexuals during there time of need. They like to think of themselves as a school that is there for them when their family isnt. When their family kicks them out of there houses and wont support them. The school provides after school support groups and support services. At first when i viewed the ad i was unclear of what the message was for…Here is one of the commercials… What are your thoughts can you tell what it is for?? Also with Levis supporting a messsage like this do you think that people that are againt gay marriage and are homophobic may stay away from a company like this and stay away from purchasing their products? they have gone about delivering this message in a very modern way Rob Toledo, senior account director, Razorfish, Seattle says “We’ve put together a very impactful social media outreach strategy. We’ll be reaching out to bloggers and like-minded organizations and people in the LGBT community,” Do you think they did this because this topic is more of a modern issue and traditionalist might not agree and therefor they figured they could reach more of there target market? or because it cost less to get the message out??
6 Comments
May 7th, 2009 at 8:20 am
Ummm… I don’t really know what to say about that ad. It’s so vague, I wouldn’t have had a clue what the charity was about without your explanation.
Do you think that’s intentional… Levi wants give back and wants to support homosexuals but doesn’t exactly want to “advertise” it? After all, only people involved in gay & lesbian rights would know what this ad is about.
But then again, maybe I’m just being skeptical…
May 7th, 2009 at 11:53 am
I honestly don’t know how people will react to this campaign. There are many people out there who feel strongly against gay rights and while this isn’t as common as it used to be I think there are lots of people who won’t like the company taking a clear stand on this issue. I am not exactly sure who Levi’s target audience is so this might work in their favor and it might not. What is the typical Levi’s consumer like? Would that audience be on board with Levi’s supporting a school that helps out the LGBT community? On the other hand, depending on their target audience, this might be really great for Levi’s. There are many people out there who would be happy to know that Levi’s is supporting this school. I think it just depends on who the audience is.
May 7th, 2009 at 2:51 pm
This isn’t the first time that levi’s has created advertising to specifically appeal to the gay community. They created both a “gay” and “straight” version of their TV ad for Levi’s 501 jeans. You can literally type in “Levi’s gay commercial” on youtube to see the spot targeting homosexuals. So I would assume that a large portion of their target audience is gay or is at least comfortable with homosexuality.
I think it is always nice to see a company use their product to help the community and I can appreciate Levi’s attempt to promote peace and acceptance. However, I can’t help but think this campaign would cause them to lose at least a group of potential consumers. But you are never going to appeal to everyone so you might as well know your target, in this case gays I guess, and stick with it.
May 7th, 2009 at 3:51 pm
Olivia you bring up a good point. You are never going to appeal to everyone so you shouldn’t not do something because it might upset a small portion of your audience especially when it could appeal to a larger portion of your audience. I had no idea that Levi’s had previously created advertising that appealed to the gay community. Thanks for the info.
May 7th, 2009 at 4:47 pm
Sometimes the best way to reach people is to target a specific audience. This way, the audience feels more attachment and pull to the message if they find something that appeals directly to them. The fact that Levi’s is trying to appeal to a small group could benefit them in the long run.
May 8th, 2009 at 1:56 pm
I think that this program is a great, great thing for society. Even though the gay movement isn’t recent, some people still do not accept it. It is comforting to know that they have somewhere else to turn to and have an immediate support system–just because they have different preferences does not mean they are not human and are not part of the family. I admire Levi’s for getting involved with something so powerful. I do not think that it will effect the anti-gay consumers because it is such an iconic brand.