Levi's Holiday Gift
by Mark Harrison
If you have witnessed Taylor Swift's impact on the diversification of NFL audiences since she started dating Travis Kelce, then you probably weren't surprised to see a double down of this trend when Beyoncé performed at halftime of the NFL Christmas Day broadcast.
Rest assured, the strategists at Levi Strauss were not surprised by the outcome.
Many sports observers may have thought Christmas was traditionally the domain of turkey dinners and the NBA. However, they were probably caught off guard when the announcement came that the NFL and Netflix decided to pounce on December 25th. Neftlix's foray into sports is showing no bounds, and a three-year agreement with the NFL to broadcast Christmas Day games is just one more major leap.
Unlike some of Netflix's other sports broadcasting experiments, they nailed NFL on Christmas Day.
Netflix doubled down on a dizzying array of guest broadcasters and musical performers. Fan engagement from around the globe was well synchronized and balanced, including the casual fan and not alienating the most passionate. By kicking the day off with Mariah Carey and cresting to Beyoncé, the partners ensured that the most ardent holiday purists saw the day as a holiday event and not a case of more sports screen overwhelming family time.
The marketers at Levi Strauss thought this recipe would taste as good as it did.
Carey - dubbed the "Queen of Christmas," was a natural to get the day going with her classic holiday hit, "All I Want for Christmas Is You." The choice of anthem performers for the two games showed even more inspiration, with the Voices of Service performing the national anthem for the Kansas City Chiefs vs. Pittsburgh Steelers game at Acrisure Stadium and the Pentatonix delivering the national anthem for the Baltimore Ravens vs. Houston Texans game at NRG Stadium.
According to her three-program $60 million Netflix contract, Beyoncé earned a cool $20 million for her thirteen-minute bedazzlement, which includes her daughter Blue Ivy, Post Malone, Shaboozey, and the Texas Southern University's Ocean of Soul band.
My question is, what did Levi's pay?
In September, the brand launched a global "REIIMAGINE" campaign featuring Beyoncé as the central figure. Her track "Levii's Jeans" inspired this collaboration from the album Cowboy Carter, which pays homage to the Levi's brand. The campaign reinterprets Levi's iconic 1985 "Launderette" commercial. In the new version, Beyoncé enters a laundromat wearing high-waisted jeans, a cropped white tee, and a denim cowboy hat. She removes her jeans and places them in a washing machine, mirroring the original ad's narrative. However, focusing on denim through a female lens, the new spot offers a fresh approach to a traditionally male-dominated category.
The first commercial starring Beyoncé amassed 2.4 billion impressions in under a month. The business impact has been equally impressive, with a reported 11% increase in sales for 501 jeans and a 20% jump in stock price. Like the NFL, Levi's is striving to increase its proportion of women fans, and Beyoncé has enough star power to help both achieve their goals and has some shine left over to include Netflix in the spotlight.
Call it a Christmas bonus or shrewd planning, but the marketers at Levi's are probably still believing in Santa—even if she appears on a truck, not a sleigh, and wears a white brimmed Western hat with no pom-pom on top.