Levi's Marketing triumph

Levi's brought in rock band Nada Surf to perform live via the company's Facebook page on Oct. 23 and picked up around 45,000 "Likers" in the process. To push the branded content event, Levi's purchased Facebook.com ads leading into last weekend, while the copy encouraged viewers to hit the "Like" button in order to watch the concert.


"We targeted 22-to-40-year olds nationally," said Megan O'Connor, director of digital and social marketing for the San Francisco-based jeans firm. "Music has been a tent pole for the brand, and Facebook allows us to amplify on-the-ground events and provide exclusive content to our fan base."

In conjunction with Spin magazine, Nada Surf performed on Levi's "Live & Direct" Facebook channel for 45 minutes. The band played at the "Levi's Photo Workshop" New York City space, where the brand holds photography/film- and music-related events. According to Levi's, 6,858 unique visitors watched the performance on Facebook for an average of 17 minutes.

O'Connor said her team had done past live-streams and knew how to handle the Nada Surf concert in terms of technical and administrative issues. She deemed the event an ROI success due to the engagement created, pointing to the bevy of viewer comments that appeared during the concert and are still being posted days later.
"We love when we can engage directly with our current fan base at the same time as growing new relationships and offering them best-in-class content," O'Connor explained.

Levi's has been among the most aggressive brands on Facebook during the last six months. For instance, yesterday, it was running Facebook.com ads to promote a two-day, 40 percent discount offer. The ads were targeted at the company's 1.9 million "Likers" (or "Fans" in the former parlance) with the following copy: "Hey Fans! Get 40% off our hottest styles today and tomorrow only! Shop now!"

And about a week after the Palo Alto, CA-based social site unveiled its open graph platform in April, Levi.com staffers stitched "Like" buttons next to all products on the site. At that time, the band also unveiled its "Friends Store." As an auxiliary store within the larger e-commerce platform at the U.S. version of Levi.com, the Facebook-based shopping channel is pushed as one of six product categories at the top of the home page.

Visitors who click through to the store see invitations to use Facebook Connect and to "Like" the brand. If they enable Connect, viewers will see their Facebook friends' upcoming birthdays - for those who have their birthday privacy control at a public setting - in a box slightly below the fold that includes names and profile pictures. What's more, the Friends Store gets populated with merchandise that users and their friends have "Liked" in the past.

One last example of Levi's through Facebook integration: the "Photo Workshop" venue's dedicated site also offers visitors the ability to enable Connect.