EBS5041 Marketing for Managers: Levi's Brand Analysis - May 2021

This essay, prepared for the EBS5041 Marketing for Managers course, examines the Levi's brand and its ability to live beyond the products graced with its logo. The analysis, based on the insights of James Curleigh and the marketing principles of Kotler & Keller, explores the importance of understanding customer needs, competitive positioning, and the role of innovation in maintaining brand relevance. The essay contrasts branding as a mere logo with the broader concept of fulfilling customer dreams and building an emotional connection. It highlights the significance of adapting to market changes, driving innovation, and fostering a desirable lifestyle to ensure long-term brand success. The paper also discusses the importance of brand mantras and employee alignment to the brand vision, ultimately arguing that a brand's longevity depends on delivering value and capturing the hearts and minds of its target markets.

Jolif Nyirenda
A comparison and contrast of the meaning of ‘a brand lives beyond the
products graced with its logo’- A case of Levi’s (USA).
EBS5041 / Marketing for Managers
May 2021
Dr. Ayansola Ayandibu
27th June, 2021 11:59hrs

Introduction
Customers are daily looking for solutions to their needs and this presents an
opportunity to businesses to provide solutions to such needs. What is key to note is
that customers are not seeking for solutions from one entity but to several of them of
which some get to face them directly while other through phones and emails. All
suppliers promise fulfilled solutions but varying levels of satisfaction depending on
their ability and how the customers evaluate their promised services. However,
positioning of the sort after solution (service or product) require the business to
understand the customer needs and also know what the other (competitors) are
offering to be sure that their promise is better and in line with customer needs.
Customers are looking for certain brands of products which can guarantee
satisfaction. Like Kotler & Keller (2016) puts it, no company can win if products or
services they offer are like any others being offered by others. This means that
winning in business requires offering unique but needed services that are seemingly
better in one way or the other. Branding is therefore an art of ensuring positioning
products not only with beauty but that they fulfil the needs with satisfaction needed
by the customers, hence the comparisons and contrasts of what branding is and
should be for firms longing to remain competitive in their target markets.
James Curleigh Discussion of Branding
James Curleigh being the leader of Levi’s (USA) noted that the market is
always changing. Meaning that to remain relevant in providing a service to the
targeted markets, the firm must be able to innovate and cause that change (Tedx
Talks 2014). His experience in the first days with Levi’s was so challenging going by
the number of years the firm had been doing business. However, management
acknowledged and knew where they were and that there was need to know what
was obtaining outside the firm and then focus on what next. The focus therefore
should not be just sorting out the present with the services or positioning the brand in
the present but also look at the future. At the same time the environment, the
consumers and the competitors are changing. There are also new entrants of
competitors that come with different levels of competition making it even more
challenging. To make things better, the company must be the driver of the needed

change by being innovate and bring to customers what they need to buy since the
company understands both the consumers and the competitors.
As noted above, for the products or services to take the centre stage of the
target market, the firm must be able to ensure that they drive the changes and make
the target market be responsive by making a few changes. Thus, simplifying the
culture of chasing the changes and instead becoming the pioneers of change. This is
similar to the question he was asked; what more they could do to grow the e-
business. The issue is about what is it that could be a hinderance to growing. And if
the company can identify what could hinder possible growth, they can then try to find
solutions and work towards them. Note that these challenges are not one off,
because they keep coming. This calls for visionary leadership and marketing
strategies of looking forward in providing solutions and also positioning the firm in
handling any possible changes caused by the changes in the environment and
indeed the competition. For example, levi’s was more into selling jeans but the
company realised that looking at customers’ closet would be more beneficial
because most of them actually owns less jeans. But when the company become the
driver of change, things are likely to just fall in place.
The possibility of having a brand live beyond the product having a logo
Kotler & Keller (2016) noted that a well-positioned brand acts as a quide to
marketing strategy where it clarifies the brands essence and help to identify what the
customers can achieve. They also define positioning as a way of designing the
company’s services or products whereby its image should occupy a distinctive place
in the minds of the target markets (consumers) (Kotler & Keller, 2016). Branding is
beyond the logo that firms put on their products but is about achieving the dreams of
its customers. From the presentation by James Curleigh discussed above, brand can
only be imaged and take a distinctive place in the minds of the consumer’s if they are
able to help them realise or achieve their dreams. Customers have pre and post
purchase feelings. Thus, if they can buy the product and their feeling hold true, then
the brand can remain in the minds of the customers. However, where this is not
fulfilled, the client will immediately begin to look at the alternative which can be of
help in fulfilling their feelings.

It is possible to have a brand that can live beyond the logo on the supplier’s
products. This lies in fulfilling the pre and post purchase dreams of clients. A
company that wants to ensure their brand is well positioned must understand where
the other brands stands by having determined them as frames of reference in the
competitive analyses (Kotler & Keller, 2016). Thus, the competitors are identified,
analysed and their products rated by identifying their possible weakness and
possible solutions in closing the gap of the identified weaknesses through point-of-
difference and point-of-parities. Kotler & Keller (2016) notes that customers must be
willing to associate with the brand beyond just being a logo. The criteria is about
being desirable to the customers, must be deliverable by the company, and must be
differentiated by the customers as being distinctive and superior compared to
relevant competitors. Thus, Levi’s brand positioning seems to look at influencing a
desirable lifestyle that need their products (having understood customers), knowing
their capability and knowing the PODs and POPs needed in line with product instead
of chasing the needs of clients. This is comparable and similar to the phone industry
where suppliers like Nokia have gone down because of failure to be more proactive
in innovation and championing change like Samsung and Apple have been trying to.
Kotler & Keller (2016) also explains that a brand can only be there long
enough if the employees know what they need to deliver through brand mantras. For
Levi’s, their vision is the basis for defining and directing the brand positioning. James
Curleigh, explains the vision as, ‘to be the most loved, most relevant lifestyle brand
by creating a legitimate levi’s lifestyle solutions where the company looks at where
they are coming from and look forward through driving innovation within its core
business areas (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtJM8ag4w5w). It also includes
an awareness of the competitors because in today’s world there are more choices
and difficult decisions that people make though the key is about driving the
competition and any possible changes in the consumer taste where picking the right
jeans should not be a difficult issue. It should also be able to be differentiated
Conclusion
To have a brand that is there long enough in the minds of clients goes beyond
putting a logo on the products. It must sit in the minds of the target markets through
the benefits it provides. For example, any differentiation must be able to deliver

leverageable advantages to the company as a way of a basis to doing better and any
competitive advantages must be seen to offer customer an advantage too (Kotler &
Keller, 2016). Thus, it should be able to capture the mind and the hearts of the target
markets through what is called emotional branding (Kotler & Keller, 2016). In all this
the target is the customer whose benefit must be translated into the benefits that the
business drives from their needs.
References
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtJM8ag4w5w
Kotler, P., & Keller, K. (2016). Marketing management (15th ed.) Upper Saddle
River, NJ: Prentice Hall
Olsen, Michael & Chung, Yeasun & Graf, Nicolas & Lee, Kyuho & Madanoglu, Melih.
(2005). Branding: Myth and reality in the hotel industry. Journal of Retail &
Leisure Property. 4. 10.1057/palgrave.rlp.5090205.
Tedx Talks (2014).How to enhance and expand a global brand:
https://www.ted.com/talks/james_curleigh_how_to_enhance_and_expand_a_
global_brand