Analysis and Project Management Plan for Levi Jeans' Market Failure

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of the Levi Jeans market failure in the early 2000s, identifying key issues such as brand dilution through product diversification, inconsistent marketing campaigns, and pricing problems. The report delves into the absence of proper planning, poor communication, and inadequate promotional strategies as contributing factors to the project's failure. It then proposes a detailed project management plan to revitalize the brand, focusing on differentiating the product, providing value to the offerings, and targeting the right audience. The plan incorporates the IPECC framework, outlining specific actions for each stage: Initiate, Plan, Execute, Control, and Close. The report emphasizes the importance of quality control, effective product optimization, and strategic brand promotion to regain market share and ensure long-term success. The conclusion highlights the need for a focused approach, emphasizing quality and brand satisfaction to cater to the evolving customer preferences. The report is based on the provided student assignment and offers valuable insights into project management strategies for brand recovery and market success within the jeans industry.

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Project initiation and planning and execution
Name of the student
Name of the university
Author Note:

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Management of Levis Jeans failed project.................................................................................3
Solution for a successful management.......................................................................................5
Implementation of IPECC..........................................................................................................7
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................8
References..................................................................................................................................9

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Introduction
The following report is based on the mishandling of a project by Levis. Product and
brand failures occur to different degrees within most of the product based business
organizations. The failure of a project is surely one of the major negative aspects in the
development and the marketing process of a brand. The absence of proper statistics based on
the ratio of the successful products to that of the failed ones makes the process much more
complex in nature. This leads the failure of the project and can also lead to serious financial
issues within the organization. The major aim of the project team is thus to learn from the
product and the brand failures in case of the future product development, design and business
strategy.
The failure of a product in the market provides the scope to the project team to gain
important information and experience regarding the mistakes of the other products and the
failures of the brands. The following report has been based on the failure of the Levis Jeans in
the beginning of the 2000’s. The major problems that have been identified in the report as the
cause of the brand multiplication and segmentation in jeans. The creation of Silver tag jeans
and red tag jeans of Levis along with its easy availability in supermarkets like ALDI’s had
made the marketing a failure for the company and have diminished the reputation of Levis
brand. The report has provided a clear picture of the different kinds of the steps that needs to
be taken in view of re organizing the marketing plan for Levis and recovering its brand value
in the European market.
Management of Levis Jeans failed project
Levis is one of the most recognized global brand in the jeans industry. The company
had enjoyed tremendous success in the 1980’s and the 1990’s which helped them to climb up
the ladder in a short time. However, the absence of proper planning and a failed project led to

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a sudden decline of the company in the start of the millennium. The company had a huge
sales depreciation accounting for about a decrease of $3.6 billion within a decade. The
absence of a proper planning and a proper strategy led to the decrease in the level of
acceptability of the products within the customers. The diversification planning of the
company in the form of Silver Tag jeans and cheaper orange tag jeans was a major failure for
the company. Apart from this there were also major complains based on the advertising
campaign of the company to promote these two special category of jeans. The campaign was
termed unprofessional as well as termed as having a low branding quality. The management
of the company also failed to ensure the integrity of their unique brand as other major
companies in the market came up with new designer brands which was a major problem for
the organization. Apart from this there was a major problem that the management of Levis
faced with Tesco. The major problem was that Tesco offered Levis jeans on a much
discounted price which was a major problem for the organization. Offering the brand at a
much lower price was clearly a great loss of integrity for the reputation of the jeans brand as
one of the best and unique in the market.
The case of Levis is one of the major cases of the failure of a marketing project by the
company. The analysis of the problems thoroughly can point to at a number of different
factors that have been the major cause in the failure of the project implementation. This
includes;
a. Absence of a proper scope and aim- Levis through its brand multiplication has failed
to identify any scope or aims for the new project. The company failed to identify the
exact target market and feasibility of the new Silver tag jeans and the orange tag
jeans. The absence of the purpose and the scope of these particular brands also had a
negative impact on their iconic red tag jeans as it suffered from loss of creditability
among the customers.

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b. Inconsistent communication- The absence of proper communication within the project
team and the absence of a proper guideline amongst the different kinds of the business
operators were a major issue for the management to ensure the success of the project.
Communication is one of the most important aspects of the business and the
organization must ensure the presence of a proper communication that can help in the
success of the business in the most efficient manner.
c. Poor planning- As the company had no such scope and planning for the new
segmentation of the brand of jeans, there was a clear lack of planning from the
management team. The lack of a planned approach was the major reason for the
failure of the jeans in the market.
d. Absence of a proper promotion- As mentioned earlier, there were major complaints
regarding the contents of the promotional advertisement, it can be clearly said that the
advertisement problems were a major issue for the organization. The lack of a strong
promotional brand to increase the acceptability of the new brand amongst the
customers was another reason behind the failure of the project management planning.
Solution for a successful management
Branding is one of the most important activities that a business can and must engage
in. The creation of a strong and recognizable brand is highly important for the organization to
ensure business success in the most proper and efficient manner. A proper branding can help
to ensure the success of the organization in the most efficient manner. Levis has clearly failed
to increase an interest on their new brands of Orange tagged and silver tagged jeans line. The
failure of the brand can be a lesson for the company. The failure thus can be treated as a
scope for the future success of the brand. The management of Levis can rethink on their
policies and make a fresh start to the whole process. The company can arrange for a fresh
value check and re assign a new project management team that can start afresh and address

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the issues that went unrecognized. Some of the major steps that can help the management of
the company to successfully deal with the project are as follows;
a. Provide more time- The new team must acknowledge the new strategies and provide
a healthy time for the strategies to develop and show off their capability. The first
thing which must be kept in mind by Levis is the importance of targeting the
customers and relying on the inbound traffic. Such a strategy will surely need time.
The strategies like PPC advertising can work immediately and improve time in
backdrop of making arrangements based on the previous data. Thus time stands out to
be one of the most important perspectives in the restructuring of the new plan for the
development of the new brand.
b. Differentiating the product- There has been a misconception among the customers of
Levis on the creditability of the reputation of the brand in the context of producing
jeans with silver tags and also producing jeans which are much cheaper. As Levis
generally stand out in the market from other jeans through the price and quality it
offers, the misconception of the company providing low quality jeans has been a
problem. It is one of the most important prospect of the organization to ensure that the
products must be differentiated in a proper way given the reputation of the company.
c. Provide value to the offer- The Company must ensure that they provide strong value
to the new jeans. The absence of a proper value and the mention of the word cheaper
has led to the downgrading of the organization in the most efficient manner. The
proper value of the products is highly important for the organization to ensure the
success of the project. The presentation of a strong guarantee to the organization can
help in the success of the business in the most efficient manner.
d. Target the right audience- The targeting of the exact audience in the organization is
highly important for the business to ensure business success. Targeting a specific set

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of customers of the business can ensure clear success for the organization in the most
effective manner.
Implementation of IPECC
The IPECC framework has been established in view of the completion of a project
management in a systematic and scientific manner. The elements of the IPECC framework
can be used to complete the Levis Project.
 Initiate- The organization should initiate stronger brand promotion and marketing
strategies. The audiences have criticised some of the previous strategies for being
offensive. The focus should be on promoting the core values of the brand that have
always been associated with it.
 Plan- The planning process is important for Levi’s. At this point, the organization
would have to plan a better product placement and pricing strategy. Product
differentiation should be given much importance at this stage. Levi’s need to focus on
a smaller number of variations while protecting the quality of the brand.
 Execute- The shops need to be supplied with the new products. These products need
to replace the same products that failed in the market. The new products must
conform to the historic quality aspects that have defined the products of the
organisation.
 Control- The organization needs to consider feedback, key performance indicators
and audience reactions very carefully. The product strategy needs to be controlled
following the same. The products need to be controlled effectively through the
development of better customer interactions.

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 Close- In order to close the project the products need to be replaced within a span of 3
to 4 months. The old products need to be completely replaced by the new products
with lesser variety and more quality.
 Quality- Product quality is a very important aspect that is connected with the
development of the new strategy. The failed products need to be taken off the market.
Quality needs to be maintained by developing a new standard of quality that is at parr
with the quality of rival products. A multilevel quality check mechanism should be
initiated.
Conclusion
Levi’s has endured significant issues with their products. The company has suffered
due to lack of innovation in the first place. Later on the efforts to release many new varieties
of products backfired as there were too much for the customer to choose from. Hence, these
product strategies never worked for the organization. In order to gain its lost market share
Levi’s would need to provide lesser variety, more quality and greater brand satisfaction. This
would ensure that in the long run the organization can benefit from this strategies as more
customers would be inclined to buy its product based on the historic quality it has maintained.
It is important that the organization utilizes effective control and optimal product
optimization.

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References
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