With less than a few weeks left before we all enter the year of 2012 (as some believe, the last one in our calendar), we are looking back at what innovations captured consumers’ attention over the past 12 months. Some of the new projects and products appeared within the trends, which emerged earlier, and some of them are truly innovative and ambitions and pave the way for something completely unseen and unpredicted by average minds.
Levi’s
On the heels of the launch of Levi’s campaign ‘Go Forth’ on a global scale earlier this year, which encouraged thousands of young people to take action and be one the forefront, the iconic jeanswear brand is kicking off a film competition entitled ‘Show us the way’. To launch this new cinema contest, which encourages participants to show “their visualization of a better tomorrow,” Levi’s has collaborated with the American Film Institute to provide the US community of filmmakers—both amateur and professional—with an opportunity to take a first step to what they really want.
Levi’s is committed to making its jeans as ‘planet and people-friendly’ as possible by adopting water-saving and sustainable sourcing goals and tracking the life-cycle of jeans to see its environmental footprint—as it turned out, water use impact from growing cotton is the biggest (49%), followed by consumer use (45%). Following the launch of Water<Less jeans, the Levi Strauss company is releasing 2 million pairs of Levi’s and dENiZEN jeans containing sustainably farmed fiber, a blend of Better Cotton, which is grown under the Better Cotton Initiative in a way that is healthier to the environment and communities, and other fabrics.
The Levi’s brand, which definitely can be proud of its history since it actually invented blue jeans over a century ago, launched a website wholly dedicated to its rich heritage. The iconic jeanswear label presents an online destination, which pays tribute to Levi’s unique background and offers apparel based on vintage models.
Levi Strauss & Co. and American Rag founder, Mark Werts have joined forces to work on a new premium denim concept called Industrie Denim. These results in new stores: first of them opened in Scottsdale, AZ earlier this month and a second store opens in San Francisco today. An online store will also be available soon at www.IndustrieDenim.com. The stores featuring industrial store interiors offer a wide choice of the best denim brands.
Continuing its global ‘Go Forth’ promotional initiative, Levi’s has teamed up with Spotify, rock band Primal Scream and Clash magazine to kick off a follow-up of the campaign dubbed Craft of Music, which is dedicated to supporting music talents in the UK. The new ‘co-creation music’ project allows fans to manage the gigs by choosing the artists which will perform at upcoming major concert of the campaign as well as songs, which will be included in the set.
Every successful brand or company has a team of people, who developed the winning strategy and helped it move forth—and, in its turn, every team has its leader. Adweek, the magazine dedicated to covering creativity, client/agency relationships and global advertising, honors world’s most powerful marketers, who contributed to strengthening international brands, which shape out today’s culture and in some way determine our tomorrow. This year Adweek will celebrate eleven individuals, who helped global brands continue re-imagining our world, with the prestigious Brand Genius awards (formerly known as Marketer of the Year) “for their success in genius concepts.”
Giant corporations and smaller companies always strive to be innovative to boost their business and continue success. Since each of the market leaders does a great job in this field, measuring and comparing their ‘innovative’ achievements can be rather tough, still Information Week, the technology magazine, studied their activity and published a list of the American companies, which use innovations in their strategies in the most effective way. While a multinational technology company, PACCAR, which manufactures premium commercial vehicles, tops the 2011 InformationWeek 500 list, the second position is taken by Levi Strauss, followed by other consumer companies including Procter & Gamble, Walgreen Co. and Colgate-Palmolive Co, which take the 8th, 29th and 50th place correspondingly. The companies were ranked based on how they use technologies and fresh approaches to engage consumers in the most meaningful and entertaining way.