Levi's Dockers
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DOCKERS: CREATING A SUB-BRAND1
INTRQDUCTION
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.
. . .
In the spring of 1985,Levi Strauss & Co. (LS&Co.) was.flush with,its success in the blue jeans market. The company's star campaign, called "501 Blues," had recently brought new vitality to the company after several faded expansions into other apparel market segments in the earlier part of the decade. Confident in the wake of 501's success, the company was contemplating its next steps when research revealed a decline in jeans purchases by LS&Co.'s core customer base of baby boomers. In short, the company's "bread and butter" customer for the last 30 years-the American male teenager-was now 2 M 9 and was moving out of the jeans market at an alarming rate. T o retain these customers even as their jeans purchases slowed or stopped, the company 'introduced Levi's Dockers casual pants. Dockers, as the name was.later shortened to, was one of the most successful new product introductions of the 1980s in the clothng indusy. Consumers responded to the product design, which u h e d the comf0r.t and casual feel of cotton, and likeable adverdsingby purchasing enough Dockers to make it a billion-dollu brapd by 1993. Over the course of the 1990s, LS&Co. enjoyed phenomenal success from its Dockers sub-brand. The Dockers brapd achieved record sales growth in 1998 and Fonunt magazine e s h a t e d in 1999 that 75 percent of American men owned a pair of Dockers and that the average customer owned 3.8 pairs. That year, the total number of Dockers owners exceeded 40 million. The company noticed at this time that younger consumers began to lose interest in Dockers, however, with many dismissing the pants as something "their fathers wore." In the late 1990s, L'evi Strauss developed new advertising campaigns and introduced new Dockers subb r a d s td counteract this trend. Sales of Dockers remained over $1 biUlon through 2000, but sales growth continued to slow. Many questioned the brand's long-term relevance.
DOCKERS: CREATING A SUB-BRAND1
INTRQDUCTION
,
.
. . .
In the spring of 1985,Levi Strauss & Co. (LS&Co.) was.flush with,its success in the blue jeans market. The company's star campaign, called "501 Blues," had recently brought new vitality to the company after several faded expansions into other apparel market segments in the earlier part of the decade. Confident in the wake of 501's success, the company was contemplating its next steps when research revealed a decline in jeans purchases by LS&Co.'s core customer base of baby boomers. In short, the company's "bread and butter" customer for the last 30 years-the American male teenager-was now 2 M 9 and was moving out of the jeans market at an alarming rate. T o retain these customers even as their jeans purchases slowed or stopped, the company 'introduced Levi's Dockers casual pants. Dockers, as the name was.later shortened to, was one of the most successful new product introductions of the 1980s in the clothng indusy. Consumers responded to the product design, which u h e d the comf0r.t and casual feel of cotton, and likeable adverdsingby purchasing enough Dockers to make it a billion-dollu brapd by 1993. Over the course of the 1990s, LS&Co. enjoyed phenomenal success from its Dockers sub-brand. The Dockers brapd achieved record sales growth in 1998 and Fonunt magazine e s h a t e d in 1999 that 75 percent of American men owned a pair of Dockers and that the average customer owned 3.8 pairs. That year, the total number of Dockers owners exceeded 40 million. The company noticed at this time that younger consumers began to lose interest in Dockers, however, with many dismissing the pants as something "their fathers wore." In the late 1990s, L'evi Strauss developed new advertising campaigns and introduced new Dockers subb r a d s td counteract this trend. Sales of Dockers remained over $1 biUlon through 2000, but sales growth continued to slow. Many questioned the brand's long-term relevance.