Levi's changing attitudes towards men in adverts < 1985 ~ >

     In media, we had to choose a topic to do for our prep work and I was interested the changing attitudes of Levi's since 1985 in TV adverts. The reason the topic's starting point is 1985 is because of the advert that was broadcast in 1985. The Levi's 501 advert featuring Nick Kamen features him as a perfected being. The background of the advert is at a laundrette, and Nick Kamen walks in and takes off all his clothes and puts in in the washing machine. Everyone looks at him because he is good looking, and at this time, the adverts from Levi's featured men in a completely different league than women. The advert below is the 1985 Levi's 501 advert.

In the 1990s, Levi's adverts still mainly focused on portraying men's bodies as the main theme of adverts. The creek advert is a good example. The Levi's 501 creek advert starts off with a group of 4 people in very traditional clothes and seems at first that the advert's main focus is on women. After the group settles to have a light snack, the two girls that were part of the group run off together to a creek near where they were. There they find a man bathing in the waters of the creek 'looking' naked. One girl finds a pair of jeans and hides it so that the man can't take it on when he comes out. As in the 1985 advert, the man is portrayed as very attractive and turns out to be the theme of the advert. Surprisingly, when he comes out, he has jeans out and the girls wonder who's jeans the one they stole are from. The next scene of the advert shows an old man searching for his jeans in the creek which makes the advert entertaining at the end. We can see that the main focus on men in the adverts haven't changed that much but has changed in a way where both men and women are used in the advert to make a storyline. The creek advert is shown below.

In 2002, a very symbolic advert is released. This advert using Jennifer Love Hewitt in it, was banned because of the way she was illustrated. From the word banned, very explicit content is expected but that thought is misdirected. The advert is a simple advert just portraying the women in a way never done before. She is the powerful and men just look at her without any control over her and just in a powerless way. Her walking style represents that of a soldier, she walks very firmly as if she's trying to say, "I am the most powerful". This advert was not banned because of it's content but because of the new way that Levi's presented a woman in it. From 1985, men were portrayed as the greatest being in the advert, but this goes along the opposite road. Directors of the time found this as unacceptable and not suitable for an advert and that's why it was banned. However, for a fact, this was just a rare case where the advert was banned and still, women were portrayed powerless in front of men in many other adverts. Still, time was changing, and the illustration of different genders was starting to show it's point in the adverts.

The last advert I'm going to present is the Go Forth advert presented in 2010. By 2010, sexual discrimination had almost completely disappeared in not only Levi's adverts but other adverts as well. This advert is portraying more of a free image of both men and women. They do what they want to do and feels excitement in it. It shows certain activities that people enjoy as hobbies and shows not a single piece of discrimination within the advert. Women will be what they will be, and the same goes for men. Levi's wasn't trying to attract a certain gender by portraying the other gender in an attractive way, but rather presented a message saying that Levi's allows you to do what you want to do freely.

Levi's is a sensitive brand when it gets to adverts, they mostly try to get customers by appealing them with a good looking image. From 1985, men were dominant over everything because of a non sensible stereotype that existed. Women were the same from the start but people just didn't notice it. If we look at how adverts have changed, the past ones all showed good images of men to attract men in a way that they could be like the person in the advert, and women, just for the comfort of it. This is changing as time passes. Not only in the advertising industry of Levi's but all the other adverts as well. These days more adverts try to present women in the way they did with men in the past, and it is a very positive example of a change.