Not just a ‘tito brand’: How Levi’s captures young, ‘fickle’ market

MANILA—Denim brand Levi's stays relevant by focusing on consumer needs, highlighting product durability and creating standout campaigns, its marketing manager said Thursday.

The quality of its products also helped capture a younger market, Levi's Philippines marketing manager Kat Costas told ABS-CBN News at the sidelines of the Philippine Retailers Association's OFR Awards Night held Thursday.

"What’s good with Levi’s is a heritage brand it has been around for 150 years, people know it as an iconic brand so sometimes people will say it’s my dad’s brand, it’s my uncle’s brand but it’s still known for its durability," Costas said.

"This is the generation with already so many options, they are fickle . . . What’s good today is that Levi’s also resonate with the younger audience because I guess we put the consumer first, so we try to keep up with what they want, the values also that they’re looking for."

Levi's has also "embraced" e-commerce and is working towards an "omnichannel" retail strategy to reach consumers. The brand is already available in online shopping sites Lazada, Zalora and Shopee, Costas said.

"The landscape is more aggressive now, but I think the consumers are also very discerning . . . So it’s really important for brands to understand the consumer," she added.

Despite the rise of e-commerce, brick and mortar shops are here to stay, Costas said, as the Filipino culture of hanging out together is unlikely to change.

"Here, the malls are really thriving. I think it’s the culture of Filipinos, it’s the place where they hang out. That will always be there, but of course we should embrace e-commerce because that is also the way of the future so we want to capture the audience wherever they want to shop," she said.

Levi's Philippines received the "Outstanding Marketing Campaign" award at the recently concluded Outstanding Filipino Retailers 2019 Awards for its father and son ad, which featured a custom jacket with braille design

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Levi's surges in Wall Street return

NEW YORK - Iconic jeans company Levi's made a hot return to Wall Street on Thursday as it eyes international growth and more direct sales to consumers in the fast-changing retail environment.

Listing under the ticker symbol "LEVI," shares of Levi Strauss & Co. surged in opening trade before finishing at $22.41, up nearly 32 percent above its IPO price.

The NYSE relaxed its no-denim policy for the session, for which the opening bell was rung by jeans-clad executives from the San Francisco-based company.

Levi's, which went private in 1985, had raised $623 million in an initial public offering that priced above its initial target price. 

First founded in 1853 in San Francisco as a wholesale dry goods business, Levi's invented the blue jean 20 years later, a product that was initially worn by primarily by miners and cowboys before becoming ubiquitous in the 20th century.

The brand has since had its ups and downs in terms of its cultural relevance but has been seen as again rising under Chief Executive Charles Bergh, who joined Levi's in September 2011 after a lengthy stint at Procter & Gamble.

Most recently, Levi's won attention when musical superstar Beyonce wore Levi's cutoff shorts in an April 2017 performance at the Coachella music festival, a point highlighted in the company's securities filing, which noted the garment was deemed the "ultimate Coachella clothing item" by People magazine.

Pivoting after 'Athleisure'

Bergh told CNBC that the brand faced a "throw-down moment" in the 2014 period as surging demand for soft "athleisure" pants took market share, especially among women.

The company brought staff from denim mills into its technology development center in San Francisco to address the problem.

"We understood what women were telling us: wearing tights, that used to be a denim occasion," Bergh told the network. "They wanted soft, stretchy, comfortable material that made them look great and gave them confidence."

Engineers developed a more comfortable fabric and one that does not give women "baggy knees, which is their biggest disatisfier," and this produced strong sales, Bergh said.

The return to public markets comes as apparel brands face continual churn in the retail landscape in the Amazon era.

Just last month, 50-year-old US retailer Gap, which also sells jeans, announced it was splitting into 2 companies to emphasize its trendy "Old Navy" brand and deemphasize stores under its namesake company.

Like other major brands such as Nike and Ralph Lauren, Levi's has sought to make itself present at all major customer meeting points: Amazon and other online vendors; department stores such as Bloomingdale's; and direct selling, whether at its own retail stores or online.

Bergh told CNBC he planned to use some of the proceeds from the offering to enhance the company's e-commerce business, build out its brick-and-mortar presence and in general for "continued investment in building out our omnichannel footprint."

China prospect?

In a securities filing, Levi's also emphasized potential growth in China and other emerging markets.

Of Levi's $5.6 billion in 2018 revenues, more than half came from the Americas, while 29 percent came from Europe and just 16 percent from its "Asia" segment, which also includes the Middle East and Africa.

Levi's said in the filing that China represents 20 percent of the global apparel market but just 3 percent of its revenues, a potential growth market for which the company recent tapped a new management team.

However, the filing also highlighted "a global trade war" as a risk, citing tariffs imposed by US President Donald Trump on several partners, including China and the European Union, which imposed reciprocal tariffs, including on denim products.

The IPO had been seen as a key barometer of investor interest in new issues ahead of much bigger offerings expected in the coming period from Lyft, Uber and others.

"Had Levi's IPO been a dud, that would have only played into the hesitancy that investors and companies looking to go public had been feeling," said Briefing.com. 

"Fortunately, that was not the case: pent-up demand for higher-quality IPOs helped to draw a lot of interest."

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Diesel Fashion Week stunt pokes fun at knock-off artists

NEW YORK -- Diesel is ditching the catwalk to masquerade as knock-off merchants this Fashion Week, purporting to be a New York fake goods store only to flog customers the real thing.

It's a clever gimmick for the 40-year-old Italian label, which is using the fall/winter 2018 edition of New York's twice-yearly style fest to open a pop-up shop on Canal Street in Chinatown, the heart of knock-off city in the US financial capital.

Sweatshirts and T-shirts are stamped "Deisel" -- making the ruse believable. Hoodies cost $60, jeans $70 -- again believably fake. Except these clothes are limited-range, designer goods.

"We have so many counterfeit products all over the world I thought, 'Why can't we play with this problem that we have?'" Diesel founder Renzo Rosso told AFP, saying he believes that more than a million counterfeit Diesel goods are sold annually around the world.

"We created a fake product, a fake name, and we came to the counterfeit district."

The store opened under the radar last week and hundreds of customers have already browsed and purchased, with most of the initial buyers blissfully unaware that the joke's on them.

"People come and they think it is a fake product. When they discover it's not a fake product, they can sell it for three or four times the value!" said Rosso, 62.

Given the queue to get in, it's paying off. The store is scheduled to close on Monday, possibly even earlier if it runs out of stock.

Otherwise, customers can go down the street to buy fake Louis Vuitton bags or imitation Rolex watches.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Paris women finally allowed to wear trousers

PARIS, France - Women in Paris can finally wear trousers without fear of criminal prosecution after the government said a more than 200-year-old ban no longer had any legal effect.

Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, France's minister of women's rights, said in a statement that the ban, imposed on November 17, 1800, was incompatible with modern French values and laws.

The municipal order required Parisian women to seek permission from local police if they wanted to "dress like a man" by wearing trousers.

It was modified in 1892 and 1909 to allow women to wear trousers if they were "holding a bicycle handlebar or the reins of a horse" but had officially remained on the books.

Answering a question in the Official Journal of the French Senate, Vallaud-Belkacem said that while it had not been formally struck down, the order was in effect abrogated.

"This order was aimed first of all at limiting the access of women to certain offices or occupations by preventing them from dressing in the manner of men," she said.

"This order is incompatible with the principles of equality between women and men.... From that incompatibility stems the implicit abrogation of the order," she said.

Parisian women had demanded the right to wear trousers during the French Revolution, when working-class revolutionaries were known as "sans-culottes" for wearing trousers instead of the silk-knee breeches (culottes) favoured by the bourgeoisie.

Women's dress continues to stir political passions in France, with Cecile Duflot, the 37-year-old Green housing minister, criticized last May for wearing jeans to the first cabinet meeting of Socialist President Francois Hollande's new government.

She was later subjected to jeers and wolf-whistles while wearing a floral summer dress in the National Assembly.

A number of women also broke parliamentary protocol by wearing jeans during an extended debate at the weekend over France's planned legalization of gay marriage.

source: abs-cbnnews.com