Levi’s Tells Kids to “Live Unbuttoned”

One might think that clothing companies would want to launch advertising campaigns depicting models and actors actually wearing the company’s clothes. Unfortunately, in the sexualized culture in which we live, one would be wrong. The most recent example of this is Levi Strauss & Co.’s new marketing campaign for its Levi’s 501 jean—a campaign that sells kids sex and promiscuity rather than style and function.

The Levi’s campaign, titled “Live Unbuttoned,” includes several TV ads featuring young men and women unbuttoning and removing their jeans while engaging in sexually suggestive dialogue, and, in one case, engaged in a sexual encounter.

In a press release, John Anderson, president and CEO of Levi Strauss & Co., touts these provocative ads as necessary to “stepping up and being a global leader.” The release goes on to describe the campaign’s theme of “unrestrained self-expression,” pointing out that the characters’ “physical unbuttoning of their jeans…captures the provoking theme of self-expression and unrestrained behavior.”

“While you would think Levi’s would promote their brand with images of people desiring to wear–not remove–their jeans, they have instead turned to the very type of sexualized marketing we have been fighting for years,” said Rick Schatz, president and CEO of the National Coalition.

The commercial, targeting young men and women, blatantly promotes a risky, sexualized lifestyle—a lifestyle that is fully realized only when jeans come “unbuttoned.”

“In other words, Levi’s is encouraging our teens and young adults to engage in random, premarital sexual encounters, which we know has serious negative consequences,” added Schatz. “Their marketing campaign encourages a moral philosophy of sexuality that not only is unfulfilling but also extremely harmful to America’s youth.”

Statistics clearly demonstrate the consequences of a society that “lives unbuttoned”:
  • American teens lead the industrialized world in sexually transmitted diseases
  • America teens lead the entire world in unwanted pregnancies
  • America teens are more likely to become pregnant and have multiple partners than any other teenager on the planet
  • 60% of first marriages are preceded by cohabitation
As you know, the National Coalition spearheaded a successful public awareness campaign against Abercrombie & Fitch in 2003. We are poised to call the same attention to Levi’s and other companies if they continue their irresponsible promotion of recreational sex to our children.

WARNING: This video includes graphic sexual content.

Click here to view the Levi’s commercial on YouTube.