A History of Marketing / Episode 41
This week, I’m joined by Tracey Panek, the corporate historian for Levi Strauss & Co, a company that embraces its past as an active part of its marketing strategy.
Tracey’s role sits directly within the marketing department. Among her many tasks is to mine Levi’s archives for authentic stories. “Authenticity” may be a buzzword we hear often, but Levi’s backs it up with primary sources, including patents, artifacts recovered from shipwrecks, and of course, jeans… lots and lots of jeans.
Tracey walks us through the brand’s evolution from a dry goods wholesaler serving miners in the California Gold Rush to a globally recognized icon of American culture.
This episode is a great case study in how a company can embrace its heritage without getting stuck in the past.
Here is what you’ll learn in this episode:
The Patent to Trademark Pivot: How Levi’s transitioned from relying on the functional patent of the copper rivet (1873) to building brand equity through the “Two Horse” trademark once the patent expired.
The “Picks and Shovels” Reality: Why Levi Strauss was originally an importer/wholesaler, and how a customer letter led to the invention of jeans.
Cultural Chameleons: How the brand navigated the shift from John Wayne conservatives to the “dangerous” denim of the 1950s and the psychedelic counterculture of the 1960s.
Campaign Spotlights: The stories behind the sales-doubling “Launderette” ad of the 80s and the Walt Whitman-inspired “Go Forth” campaign.
Listen to the podcast: Spotify / Apple Podcasts
Thank you to Xiaoying Feng, a Marketing Ph.D. Candidate at Syracuse, who volunteers to review and edit transcripts for accuracy and clarity.
Bridging History and Marketing at Levi’s
Andrew Mitrak: Tracey Panek, welcome to A History of Marketing.
Tracey Panek: Thank you for having me.
Andrew Mitrak: I thought I’d start by asking you about the connection between history and marketing at Levi Strauss & Co. You’re a corporate historian. What is your relationship to other marketers at the company?
Tracey Panek: Well, I’m actually part of the marketing department, so it’s a very close relationship. It’s actually a really great place to be because I can see what projects are coming up and what I can tie into that we can use and provide resources from the archives to. So, it’s a great spot to be in.
Andrew Mitrak: One of my research sources for prepping for this interview was a book called Levi Strauss: The Man Who Gave Blue Jeans to the World, written by Lynn Downey. I saw that Lynn worked as a historian at Levi’s. Was she your predecessor? Did she help build this history department, and what did this history department look like when you took it over?
Tracey Panek: Lynn was my predecessor. She worked at the company for almost 25 years. She was hired in 1989 to establish the archives. Her great contribution was to help start to tell the stories, was to help try to clear up myths about Levi in particular, but other stories that had been told that weren’t really accurate. She also scoured the world in search of pieces to add to the collection, to build the collection. So when I joined in 2014 at her retirement, there was a great collection in place.
But one of the things that was missing is it was a very manual collection. And what I mean by that is it was not digital. If you wanted to use the collection, you had to come in person. There was the need to bring the collection into the 21st century. So I started in mid-year 2014. By the end of the year, we were doing the first photoshoot—we now do this annually—but we were photographing all of the vintage pieces on site. That has been the beginning of a much more digital collection. So we have the physical collection and the digital collection, adding new and exciting pieces along the way.
Andrew Mitrak: If she was hired back in 1989, there is sort of a self-awareness about Levi’s place in history, that they know that they’re a historic brand and that for over 35 years now, they’ve embraced their place in history and kind of leaned into themselves as a historic brand.
Tracey Panek: Yeah, definitely. Being able to have the archives and have the resources to come up with authentic stories. Today we use that word in marketing, and for me, what it means is that they’ve got to be accurate. They’ve got to be based on primary sources as much as we can, and having the collection allows us to do that.
The Early Life and Resilience of Levi Strauss
Andrew Mitrak: I want to ask you about the life of Levi Strauss, because reading his story, I just felt grateful to be alive today. He fled and escaped Bavaria because of antisemitic laws. The trip across the Atlantic was super dangerous and it seemed miserable. Then once he got to the East Coast, he then traveled through Panama to get to California, and that was really dangerous as well. Do you think these hardships helped shape his character and made him and his company more resilient?
Tracey Panek: Well, you’re very right in describing a lot of the hardships that he went through. He was the youngest son in a Jewish family. There were very few opportunities for him to work or to marry with all the restrictions and pogroms that they had. So his father dies when he’s still very young, he’s 15 or 16, and he and his mother and two older sisters decide that they’ll make their way to America. They looked with hopefulness and kind of an American spirit that today we look back on and we call the American Dream. And I think there was a bit of adventurousness and wanting to make a name for himself and his family.
He definitely went through a lot, even changing his name when he arrives in America. He was lucky to have a couple of older brothers and they help him to learn about what will be his business, dry goods in the wholesale side of it. So absolutely. One of the stories I love to tell to describe how tough he was and how resilient he was—because you went through a lot and you just had to get up and move on—is 1857. Four years after Levi sets up his company. He’s only been in San Francisco a few years but has managed to be very successful. So successful that by 1857, he decides to send an amount of treasure—I want to say it’s like close to $80,000 in gold.
But you can imagine, in 1857, it is worth a lot. And he’s going to send it back to New York where his family is and where Wall Street still is, it’s still the financial capital of the United States. He sends it by steamship down the Pacific down to Panama. It is then loaded onto a train, goes to the Atlantic side because of course there’s no canal at that time, and then another steamship, the treasure rooms are the contents are deposited into another ship and they head up to New York. But off of the coast of the Carolinas, the ship hits a storm and it sinks to the bottom of the ocean floor. And all of that treasure is lost.
It’s a huge amount of money. And Levi just has to continue on and not dwell on it. Although I think it’s rather telling that in some of the invoices not long after that date, there is little notes: “Are you insured? Are you insured?” It’s a great story of resilience. I actually bid on and won a piece of that ship. The ship is called the SS Central America, “Ship of Gold” is what it’s referred to as because it’s this Gold Rush era ship. And we have in the archives now a piece of the copper hull plate that’s on display and that is a perfect example of what you point out. You had to be hardy. You had to get up and move on when you’re faced with obstacles and you had to be resilient.
Andrew Mitrak: Yeah. That was one of the stories in the book that stood out to me. Like, oh my gosh, this shipwreck and he’s sending a decent chunk of his fortune back. And also like 400-something people die. It’s a really horrible tragedy, all this money lost, but also these people lost. And it kind of also speaks to just the hardships of operating a business at that time, making it to California and the West Coast in the first place, and that that was just how commerce was done, is how things were sent back and forth. Anybody who is coming to the West Coast, they’re making this perilous journey where they can sink, they can get horrible diseases.
Tracey Panek: I’ll just mention one more thing about those early years. The other great story about Levi is a year after he arrives in the city, and he’s pretty successful early on, he donates a portion of his profits to an orphanage in the city. It’s still around today, that orphanage, Edgewood. In fact, I went last year to a big event they had there. It set a precedent for giving back to the community and also spoke volumes really about Levi, his Jewish values, his own values about, you know, you go through hardships, but where you can, you try to give back something.
Andrew Mitrak: Yeah, that’s great.
Levi Strauss: The Wholesaler and the Gold Rush
Andrew Mitrak: I think of Levi Strauss as the classic “picks and shovels” story, and that it’s not the people who search for the gold who make the riches, but it’s the people who sell the tools that get them wealthy. But also, when I learned about this story in grade school—I grew up in California and they teach you about the Gold Rush then—they taught me as if Levi Strauss was selling the jeans directly to the miners and they kind of pitched that as a story. But it was a little more complex than that. He founded the company in 1853 when he was only 24 years old, but then the riveted denim jean wasn’t invented until 1873. So he wasn’t really selling jeans until much later. So what was he actually selling the miners during the Gold Rush? Because it wasn’t the jeans yet.
Tracey Panek: The Gold Rush was an important part of the company’s history. Levi wouldn’t have come to San Francisco were it not for the Gold Rush. He leaves New York where he’s learned from his brothers, but he comes out to make a name for himself. And you’re right, he’s not going to do it by looking for gold. But he recognizes an opportunity to sell, and within a month of his arrival in the city, he’s looking for a warehouse near the waterfront where we still are today, by the way. But Levi, he is prepared for a shipment of supplies that will come a month after his arrival so that he can set up his business very quickly.
He is not manufacturing. As you point out correctly, in those first 20 years, he’s not manufacturing. He is importing and exporting and selling things that others are making. And we have an invoice from 1858. And on that invoice, there are things like fabric, drawers, gray flannel shirting. There’s hose, which would be socks, and you can get, I think each of the socks was $1.15 for some hose. And the Hardy and Kennedy wanted to get $128 worth of hose. All of the requests, the supplies that they want, add up to $1,600. 1858. That’s a lot of product. One retail customer. So imagine all of the business that Levi is doing. So you’re right in noting that Levi wasn’t manufacturing, but the Gold Rush and the time that he begins, it certainly molds who he is and his relationships that will be established throughout the West.
Andrew Mitrak: The folks in the Gold Rush, they were certainly benefiting from materials that Levi’s imported and sold wholesale to retailers, but they weren’t buying jeans quite yet. That wouldn’t come until 1873. Can you tell the story of how Levi first encountered Jacob Davis and how the riveted denim jean kind of came into play?
Tracey Panek: Well, let me first say that a lot of what people read and what you may have read in your own research is myth about Levi coming and bringing denim with him when he arrives in San Francisco and creating on his own, sewing on his own blue jeans. Well, that’s not what happens. He develops a very successful dry goods business within the first 20 years. And he gets a letter in 1872 from a customer in Reno, Nevada. Reno, Nevada is very close to Virginia City where the Comstock Lode silver load has been discovered. It’s a huge discovery. It will help fund the development and growth of San Francisco.
And this customer is a tailor in Reno. And he writes to Levi about this remarkable innovation. And it’s so interesting because it’s tiny. A tiny little innovation that will eventually allow Levi to manufacture for the first time and will eventually revolutionize fashion. It’s just a little piece of metal. A little tiny piece of metal, a rivet that’s added to pockets of work pants. And in this letter from Jacob Davis, that’s the name of the tailor, he sends two samples of them and tells them that they are selling like hotcakes and he can’t keep up with the demand. And would the company be interested in taking out a patent to protect his idea? He just knows somebody’s going to steal it.
Levi, he’s adventurous as you pointed out, he agrees. The company on May 20th, 1873 is granted a US patent for an improvement in fastening pocket openings. It is the birth of the modern blue jean or riveted denim pant. And in that patent, those patent papers, there’s a sketch with little dots at the pocket area and one at the base of the button fly where the original rivets were. And that’s the story. We celebrate at the company May 20th every year as the birthday of the blue jean or 501 Day, as that garment or overall would eventually be called.
Jacob Davis and the Birth of the Blue Jean
Andrew Mitrak: Yeah. This really changed everything. Because if you think of how annoying it must be for your pocket to break and rip, because if that’s the thing that gets ripped, if people are using these jeans or I should call them waist overalls, that’s what they were called then, right? They were using them to hold their tools. Maybe if you find some silver, maybe put that in there. And if it’s ripping, you’re just losing everything everywhere, right? And so this comes and they totally lean into this. I just checked the Levi’s I’m wearing, I checked them before I put them on like, it’s right there. Patented May 20, 1873.
And it’s kind of unusual, thinking of this as a marketer, that most products, they’ll say the date the company was established, right? You’ll see that EST, such and such date. But it doesn’t say that. It says the date that this was patented. So was it immediate that Levi’s the company started manufacturing and leaning into this patent as sort of their differentiator?
Tracey Panek: Yeah, and let me clarify that what you’re talking about is the branding on the rivets themselves. Which is amazing because these are tiny. This is like smaller than a thumbnail. And it’s a little tiny little bit of copper and on that little rivet it says PAT for patent, May 1873, SF CA, SF California, and LS & Co. And all that on the little rivet. Yes, it is on that rivet and that imprint is given to those first manufactured products in 1873, the first waste overalls, those riveted pants. So Levi and the company, they’re very savvy about their branding and know that if they put it on there, you know, it’s something you can recognize. And then of course the Levi’s buttons are going to be branded as well. And eventually they’ll also anticipate the end of the patent, which doesn’t last forever, and start to create something to differentiate between them. So yes, the company leans into it. Levi is still a wholesale dry goods dealer, so the wholesale part of the business still continues as usual. And those riveted denim products will be a part of his business, but they won’t become super popular and bring the business what will happen eventually until much later.
From Patent to Trademark: The Two Horse Brand
Andrew Mitrak: Yeah, let’s dig into that story. Because then when does it sort of start to emerge? Because you mentioned how patents expire, they don’t last forever. Trademarks, however, last a lot longer. And pretty soon you can see the Two Horse Brand patch that’s on the back and the red imprint on the leather that’s on the back of the jeans. So when did that start to come into play when they sort of evolved from relying on the patent to then sort of trademarking more of their IP around what’s on the pants themselves?
Tracey Panek: So a patent doesn’t last forever. It lasts about 20 years. And the company wanted to create something that would be recognizable to customers who wanted to get a genuine pair of Levi Strauss & Company waist overalls. And they created this image of two horses facing opposite directions with a little pair of our overalls in the middle. And the idea is they’re so strong, even if you pull them, you’re not going to tear them. And that trademark was created in 1886. It’s one of the oldest continuously used trademarks in the world. Originally we put it on our garment, on our waist overalls, on the inside pocket. But only the wearer could see that. So then we wise up about that and we put it on the back patch of the garment so that others can see it, not only potential customers as well as our customers who knew us.
It was important in a couple of ways. That image could be recognized by anyone who was illiterate, which would have been a number of our workers, our blue-collar workers who wore our products. It could have been recognized by somebody who didn’t speak or write English, because we had a lot of immigrants who were working as well. So it played a number of roles and it symbolized the strength and quality of the product. So it was a great way to easily let people know: look for the Two Horse Brand, and then you know you’ve got a genuine pair of Levi’s.
From Trademark to Icon: Levi’s and the Cowboy
Andrew Mitrak: So, when did the waist overalls themselves, when did that become the majority of Levi’s business? When did they start to sort of divest from the rest of the dry goods part of the business and really lean into the waist overalls themselves?
Tracey Panek: Well, it happens slowly. When they bring some of the first trained accountants into the company—this will be members of the Haas family who marry in, who have come with an accounting background in the late teens and early 20s—they start to recognize that this is a bigger seller than they knew. And by the 1920s, they start devoting some revenue to advertisements. So in the 20s, you’ll have advertisements with cowboys wearing our products and feature details being called out. And they’re being produced in a number of languages: English, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese.
And then it’s by the 30s, coming out of the Depression—because the Depression was hard for the company, but everybody around the United States and the globe—when we begin to recover from that, we focus on the cowboy as our marketing symbol and also on our denim, our riveted denim products. Which, by the way, almost immediately include riveted denim jackets, which will add to the line and other riveted denim products. We don’t really pull out of our wholesale business until after World War II. But we had recognized, beginning as early as the late teens, how valuable this product was and started to focus on that more. So it happens gradually. It doesn’t happen just immediately.
Andrew Mitrak: When did it grow from primarily being sold to working people just for utility versus being more of a fashion statement? What were the first inklings of people wearing it for something other than just its pure utility and more for the image associated with it?
Tracey Panek: Well, we get hints of it because it doesn’t happen immediately. But we get hints of it in the 1930s. In fact, one of the earliest examples of it is in 1935 in Vogue magazine. An article about dude ranching, having a dude ranch vacation, which becomes very popular in the 30s and 40s. People from the East, the East Coast, and even as far away as Europe will come to the West and stay on a working horse or cattle ranch. And they want to have a Western cowboy dude ranch experience, and so they want to dress like a cowboy.
And Vogue magazine says, if you’re coming out and you’re a woman, get yourself a pair of Lady Levi’s. The year before, we had introduced the first blue jeans for women. Get yourself a pair of Lady Levi’s, wear them cuffed at the bottom once, with a Stetson hat, a silk kerchief, boots, and a great air of bravado, the article says. And if you can do that, you’re going to have a great time. But here you see people who are dressing not because they want to do tough work, but because they want to dress like someone else. In this case, cowboys or dudes from a dude ranch.
And then, of course, you have movies. We’re in California to the south of us in San Francisco. You’ve got Hollywood coming out with leading actors, especially in Westerns, and they’re wearing Levi’s. John Wayne, for example, in 1939, he has his first leading role in Stagecoach and he’s wearing a pair of 501s. So there are a number of influences that will change and lead people to start purchasing not just for practical workwear. And by the 50s, we like to say that’s the decade when denim became dangerous. And a lot of customers will be from those who are joining motorcycle clubs and they want to have some tough clothes as well, but they’re going to get their Levi’s with a leather jacket perhaps, and that look of the rebel, which is implanted in people in the movie like Marlon Brando’s The Wild One.
Levi’s and Hollywood: An Organic Connection
Andrew Mitrak: You mentioned the movies and iconic actors like John Wayne and Marlon Brando. Levi’s, more than most other companies I can think of, is really tied to the movies in a way where there are so many just iconic characters, even very different types of characters, that are wearing Levi’s. You mentioned Stagecoach and how the Westerns were really popular and that presumably people on the East Coast were watching Western movies and seeing Levi jeans and coming to the dude ranch out West and then wanting to get their own Levi’s or their Lady Levi’s. Was Levi’s sort of intentionally making connections to Hollywood to sort of use product placement in a way? Or was it more organic where costume directors and wardrobe folks at Hollywood were just picking out Levi’s because that’s what looked good or what they thought would be good on the character?
Tracey Panek: Not in the way we think about it today. Today we have something called the House of Strauss, where influencers, movie, film folks can come and be outfitted in Levi’s. We didn’t have anything like that. But we certainly had good relations with the studios. And we’re in California, our location certainly probably helped. But also, we have many people who are wearing Levi’s. By the 1960s, when you have this rising youth generation who are adopting denim and certainly blue jeans in a big way—thanks in part, I think, to the idea of the rebel and what they’re wearing—then there is a desire to look a certain way, to wear something different from your parents and your parents’ generation, and they do that through Levi’s.
Plus, Levi’s are such a great canvas for self-expression. It’s just this lovely tough blue fabric. Even if it tears, you can repair it with embroidery or a patch and it’s going to look cool. So all of these influences will come into play when it comes to the popularity of Levi’s in pop culture and in other subcultures generally.
The Shift from “Waist Overalls” to “Jeans”
Andrew Mitrak: As we’re talking about this era, at some point, waist overalls become jeans. Can you tell the story of how that transition happened? When did waist overalls—which is just so funny that that was the phrase that was used, jeans just sounds like something that’s existed forever, but no, it’s actually relatively recent—so how did that happen?
Tracey Panek: Yeah. So we, I mentioned briefly the rise of the youth generation. San Francisco is the headquarters, the city where our company is headquartered, and we’re a stone’s throw away from the counterculture epicenter, the Haight-Ashbury. And young people are flooding into San Francisco and they are adopting Levi’s and blue jeans and denim in a big way. It was in 1967 when we introduce our first zippered jean, the 505, which is slimmer and intended to be a product that this younger generation will like, that we switch the name on our advertising to “Jeans” instead of the “Overalls” that we had been using.
So I think the story of that is, as a company, we’re observant. We are watching what’s happening in culture and we’re paying attention and so we’re responding to that. And that includes not just naming a product for what the young people are calling it, but using their music because that will be another way that they will connect with our products.
Andrew Mitrak: Yeah, using their music. On YouTube, I found a radio ad of the Levi’s Jefferson Airplane song, which is amazing and so from the era.
And so you’re leaning into this counterculture, but also there is sort of a dance between the John Wayne sort of conservative, actual using jeans for their utility purpose—that Levi’s has probably a large customer base that’s doing that—and then you have the Marlon Brando sort of greaser type motorcycle guy of the 50s, the hippies of the 60s, you even have like rockers and punks of the 70s. And there are different flavors of counterculture that Levi’s is appealing to even as it’s also appeasing sort of the mainstream. How does the company balance both?
Tracey Panek: The great thing about Levi’s is its timeless appeal and those working-class roots, which make it a garment that’s not pretentious. If you want to fit in and not be somebody that’s making airs, then you’re going to want to wear blue jeans. So they become really something that so many different cultures and subcultures choose, as you correctly point out in your description of the folks that are wearing them. Even today, I’m pleasantly surprised when I learn about a unique group that I didn’t know about that have been wearing Levi’s and have been tapping into that.
So the company, to some extent, works on creating timeless products. Our iconic product being the 501, that waist overall, and still having those products that have been timeless and that you can use and that won’t look dated. Let’s just say that. So you can wear them today, or you could have worn them in the 1800s and they look relatively the same. And in that way, you can use that as a basis for so many different age groups, genders, sexualities—because that’ll be another story in and of itself—who have worn Levi’s. And I think it’s one of the really amazing qualities is the versatility of our clothing.
Levi’s Iconic “Launderette” Commercial
Andrew Mitrak: One of Levi’s most iconic advertisements is their Launderette ad, which aired in Great Britain in the mid-80s. Can you tell the story of this advertisement?
Tracey Panek: Well, by 1985, we’re well established as a global product. And the 501, which is the icon, it is a button-fly denim riveted waist overall—we call it jeans now—but that product, we wanted to give a little love, especially coming out of eras where there were other competitors. And so in 1985 on Boxing Day, which is the day after Christmas in the UK, we launched a commercial called Launderette. And in the commercial, Nick Kamen, who’s this very handsome young man, comes into a laundromat and the ad is set to the music “I Heard It Through the Grapevine“ by Marvin Gaye. It’s just a great song.
And he goes into the laundromat and he starts taking off his clothes because he’s going to wash his Levi’s. And it’s busy. There’s other people at the laundromat and they’re looking at him, “What’s this guy doing?” And so there’s certainly a little sex appeal there, but there’s also surprise. He throws his Levi’s into the washing machine and washes them. And that is the ad. It is an incredibly popular ad. It, in estimates from people and reviews that I’ve seen of it and talking to people, it probably increased sales of the 501 by as much as 200%. Thanks to the music, thanks to Nick Kamen who is featured on it. It just hits the right notes in so many ways and it helps to re-energize the 501.
Andrew Mitrak: So the creative behind it, BBH, and the person who made it is one of the creatives, is Sir John Hegarty, who’s... he’s knighted. And I don’t think he would have been knighted if it wasn’t for this ad. It’s like, there aren’t that many advertising people who get deemed a Sir and get knighted. And it’s like, he’s one, and it’s probably you could tie it to this Levi’s Launderette ad. He’s had an amazing career, but this, this ad is what he’s most associated with.
Tracey Panek: He was a guest speaker just this past year for our marketing team. So it was quite an honor to have him talk a little bit about working with the company and working with a brand that was willing to be very creative.
Andrew Mitrak: Oh, that’s great. I love his talks. He’s so inspiring. So that’s cool that you got to hear directly from him with your team.
Walt Whitman and the “Go Forth” Campaign
Andrew Mitrak: I want to ask you about my personal favorite campaign, which I saw probably around the time I was in high school. It was “O Pioneers!” and “America Go Forth,” and they’re both set to these beautiful poems by Walt Whitman.
And they’re filmed in this very impressive cinematography type way that just evokes this feeling of Americana. I loved these ads when I first saw them. Can you share more context about these ideas?
Tracey Panek: Those ads launched in 2009. One of the things I love about them is they actually used wax cylinder recordings of Walt himself. So you can hear his, you can hear him speaking, which I think makes it even more appealing and authentic coming from him. And you can hear his, where he puts emphasis on his words. It’s so beautiful, isn’t it? That poetry that you were referring to. And the imagery that they used in the ads was also to support those beautiful words that he says.
It was really created as a campaign to inspire a pioneering spirit, the way that Whitman captures it in his poetry. And I think it did it really beautifully. And I recently watched some of those, just the beautiful images with his voice in the background. Just lovely to, and very different from some of the other ads that we’ve done, but very memorable.
Andrew Mitrak: Yeah, that’s right. And I think this was one of the first ads that I remember seeing like really tying a brand to Americana. You know, it’s a historical ad. It’s very striking to hear a wax cylinder recording with music behind it. And it struck me that Levi’s wasn’t advertising the rivet, they weren’t even advertising the product. They were like advertising this idea and leaning into a shared history of people. And I’m wondering for you as a historian who’s also part of a marketing team, do you sort of see this trend of Levi’s from going to marketing rivets and marketing their product to marketing ideas like durability to then evolving their brand to talk about things like whole cultural movements and then ultimately shared history? Like, do you sort of see that evolution in how Levi’s has approached their marketing?
Tracey Panek: Well, that campaign with Walt Whitman especially, was a nod to our Western roots, especially the old pioneer and coming out West and what it means to be, which really is all about our early history. You know, we were born here in the American West. And for a lot of people overseas or in other parts of the world, we represent what they think of when they think of America. So I think that we did it well.
I think that, you know, we’ve used at different times what we’ve felt was relevant for that particular time period. You referred to the Jefferson Airplane and their “White Levi’s” song that you can hear Grace Slick singing. And that ad campaign was from 1967. And they just hit it perfectly. It was the year of the Summer of Love. And at that time, that made sense to do it then. So I think we look at what’s happening and relevant at any given time and try to do our best to respond to that.
Discover More Levi’s History
Andrew Mitrak: Tracey Panek, thanks so much. I’ve really enjoyed this conversation and having this opportunity to go through Levi’s history and analyze their marketing in a new way. For listeners who want to learn more about your work and the history of Levi’s, where would you point them to?
Tracey Panek: I do a series on TikTok called “Greatest Stories Ever Worn” and “From the Levi’s Archives.” You can look for me there. You can look for videos that I’ve done on YouTube. I narrate the YouTube “From the Archives,” the Levi’s Archives series. If you’re looking for more of a corporate kind of thing, you can look for me on LinkedIn and you can find a lot of my content there. And then of course, I also do a lot of the writing for Unzipped, our company blog. So, yeah, several different places.
Andrew Mitrak: That’s great. I’ll paste links to all of those in the blog that accompanies this show. So Tracey Panek, thanks so much for joining me. This has been a lot of fun.
Tracey Panek: My pleasure. Thanks for having me, Andrew.
