The "America" crew on set during the first day of shooting in New Orleans.

The opening image in Levi’s new commercial shows a neon sign of the word “America” partially submerged in water. Is it a metaphor for the state of the nation? An America drowning in debt, sinking under the weight of gluttonous greed? Filmed near a fishing camp in New Orleans’ 9th Ward, the moment aims to evoke the galvanizing spirit of the new Levi’s tagline: “Go Forth”.

Launched over the Fourth of July weekend, “Go Forth” is   Wieden+Kennedy, Portland’s first creative work for the denim brand since it won the $80 million US account last December from BBH, New York.  The agency is aiming high with a bold new campaign intended to shift the brand away from its traditional focus on irony and eye candy and on to a loftier, literary idea.

The “Go Forth” spots – “America” and “OPioneers!” – take the rousing poetry of Walt Whitman as a soundtrack to a heady, cinematic montage of gritty inner-city life, earthy American iconography and lithe young models frolicking in lush greenery.

Much like the agency’s “Just Do It” tagline for Nike, the campaign is more inspirational than aspirational. The strategy heavily taps the optimistic mood in America immediately following President Obama’s election and plays up the denim brand’s heritage as the pant of choice for the practically-minded.

“Levi’s could really go back to its roots and make its heritage new again in terms of it being a product that was equipping Americans to work for better times,” says creative director Tyler Whisnand. “It has this spirit of renewed optimism for the American work ethic.”

To capture that mix of optimism, patriotism and youthful urgency, W+K chose to work with young filmmakers and artists new to advertising. Anonymous Content’s Cary Fukunaga, director of the Sundance hit Sin Nombre, helmed “America” while The Directors Bureau’s M Blash shot “OPioneers!”

The campaign also includes print work by photographer Ryan McGinley, a series of video testimonials filmed by curator-turned-director Aaron Rose and a Razorfish-designed website that asks users to rewrite the Declaration of Independence.

Fukunaga, who had never directed an ad before, was promoting Sin Nombre in Mexico this past March when his manager called and said the agency wanted him to pitch on “America”.

“The tone was particularly unusual for what I imagined most commercials to be like,” he says. “It felt like an attempt to really take stock of America as it is at this point in 2009. Not just trying to sell a product, but actually comment or critique ourselves as a nation and, conveniently, highlight an American product that has represented pioneering and perseverance since the days of early Manifest Destiny.”

Fukunaga pitched four storylines, filming a mini-narrative for each and then extracting moments for the montage-style spot: children from New Orleans, a CEO character, a group of migrant workers and a trio of 20-somethings. The four-day shoot took place in San Francisco and New Orleans, the latter city he calls, “a not too subtle example of America in reconstruction, both in positive and negative ways.”

The spot was set to an archival recording of what’s believed to be Whitman reading his poem “America” in 1888, which Fukunaga and Rock Paper Scissors editor Elliot Graham used as an “emotional” editing guide. “A lot of the power of the spot comes from [Whitman’s] poem,” says Graham. “There’s sort of an honesty to it. If you start to go away from that in the visuals, they don’t work with the words.”

Fukunaga says he interpreted “Go Forth” as an elusive and ever-changing idea. As such, the agency gave him and M Blash a lot of leeway to imagine characters and situations, as long as the commercials conveyed to consumers that it’s up to them to define the meaning.

Whitman’s poetry also features in “OPioneers!”, shot in the Pacific Northeast by Blash, a Portland native who also worked on the spec spots that helped W+K land the Levi’s account.

“The script for each spot was the poem so that was essentially all that was set in stone,” says W+K associate agency producer Juliana Montgomery. “The characters that were developed from that and the journey they would take was open and flexible and fluid throughout the process.”

For “OPioneers”, Blash, his producer Ike Martin and DP Kasper Tuxen, mapped out four remote, outdoor locations in Oregon and Washington where the young, Levi’s-clad cast could frolic and contemplate the natural world. It was up to Blash to create spontaneous scenarios in which “something magical” happened.

One way he did that was by keeping camera set-ups to a minimum. For example, he erected a video village for a 360-degree view of the action. “You’re asking people to do things they generally do when they’re having a really personal experience out in the wild,” he says. “Contemplation, reacting to things that are beautiful and powerful, like waterfalls and fire – those are things we don’t usually do with cameras around us.”

As a first-time commercial director, he liked that “Go Forth” avoided the cynical tone and cutesy appeals he believes plagues most contemporary advertising. He also praised Levi’s for including a shot of two men kissing in a photo booth, which he pushed to include in “OPioneers!”. “Initially that was an idea, they didn’t even want it in the spec and I was like, we have to go and do this,” he says. “This is about moving forward.”

Ultimately, he hopes the open-minded attitude of the campaign will encourage viewers to do more than buy jeans.
“I hope that they’re inspired by it. I hope that they’re a little alarmed by it,” says Blash. “I feel like if something like this were to show up in a more conservative household, that it will have that effect and it will serve as the call to arms. It will be a wake-up call that advertising isn’t always necessarily a subdued, formulaic thing.” Q

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For more insight on “Go Forth”, read interviews with W+K creative directors Tyler Whisnand and Danielle Flagg and director Aaron Rose here and here. Check out a photo gallery from the "America" shoot here.

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