An image from the Levi's commercial "America", directed by Cary Fukunaga.

Wieden + Kennedy will launch its first major campaign for Levi's this week with a blunt, yet optimistic message for America's disenchanted youth: "Go Forth".

Targeting a young demographic of "new progressives", the agency's creative team looked to American poet Walt Whitman to inspire a pair of commercials created by two first-time commercial directors. By pairing new and old perspectives, W+K hopes to capture a spirit of hope and self-reckoning that will shift Levi's focus slightly off of sex and on to America's old-fashioned work ethic.

Go Forth, which launches this week, is Wieden + Kennedy, Portland's first campaign for the denim brand since it won the $80 million account last December. Bartle Bogle Hegarty, New York previously handled Levi's work in the United States. The agency chose not to re-pitch when the company announced plans for a creative review last year, but BBH's London and Singapore offices continue to work on Levi's in Europe and Asia Pacific, respectively.

W+K creative director Tyler Whisnand says the agency pitched the Go Forth idea during the review, which took place right after Barack Obama's successful presidential campaign. "[Levi's] wanted to be relevant again in an authentic way," he says. "It's a company that produces a product that is very utilitarian and useful. It's something that you would wear to not only go out at night but something to put on to go to work."

To direct the commercials, the agency approached Anonymous Content's Fukunaga, director of Sundance hit Sin Nombre and Portland-based filmmaker M. Blash, whose film Lying debuted at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival.

The first spot "America", directed by Fukunaga, features stark black and white imagery shot in San Francisco and New Orleans' Ninth Ward accompanied by what's believed to be an original wax recording of Whitman's real voice reading four lines of his 1888 poem "America."

"‘America' is quite honest and realistic about what's going on in the country and the world," says Whisnand. "It's about the spirit of America in transition. It looks toward the future with the words of Whitman talking about the potential of Americans and how Americans filled with justice and love can persevere - and Levi's is a brand that's going to equip you for that."

In Blash's "OPioneer!", blissful youth run through lush landscapes in the Pacific Northwest as a 1950's Smithsonian recording of Walt Whitman's poem, "Pioneers! O Pioneers!" plays on the soundtrack. The is full of what Whisnand calls "post-American romanticism" and "where we're headed as a country."

To ensure both ads brimmed with youthful vitality, the agency looked for young directors that had never shot a commercial before. Both directors were given more freedom than usual for a job of this size.

"The two spots are a little bit different but they are a call to arms," says creative director Danielle Flagg. "There's this feeling of not only an urgency, but there's a movement and it makes you want to feel like you're a part of it."

In addition to commercials, the campaign features a print and outdoor campaign shot by 31-year-old New York photographer Ryan McGinley, an interactive website and social media components.

McGinley's photographs for the print campaign are similar to those in his art book I Know Where Summer Goes and Sigur Ros video "Gobbledigook" - both of which featured young naked people frolicking in forests and on beaches. The Levi's ads are tamer in that the models are (of course) wearing jeans alongside motivational taglines like "All I need is all I got" and "Strike up for the New World".

Both creatives say the agency was careful to differentiate Go Forth from McGinley's Cannes Lion Grand Prix-winning print campaign for Wrangler out of Paris agency Fred & Farid. Flagg says that the Go Forth print work wasn't staged and the agency didn't give the photographer a shot list to cover off. "There was a freedom and rawness to the work," she says. "The team appreciated his eye and that unexpected vision."

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