Willis’ Bag

OK, my bad. I’ve been inexplicably missing in action from my blog Willis’s Bag for a couple weeks, or months, or.... But, it hasn’t been 20 years OK.

My Research

Just to let you know I’ve been busy finishing-up the 10 year anniversary edition of the Urban Market Report: A Tapestry of Media & Life®.

This special edition of the Urban Market Report is called Urban Radio: The Power Unlocked!, and comes loaded with a number of urban market research firsts and a global search -- all in order to identify and validate the true power of urban radio that was 5 years in the making.

So, to make-up for my being missing in action, I’ve compiled an extended play ‘blog’ across my normal range of topics, which was rather clever I thought…, but what do I know.

Speaking of radio, a lot of noise in the radio industry is being made about Arbitron’s march towards audience engagement metrics. Gurus on both sides like Mark Ramsey question it, and others have been long giving it a call-to-arms like Chris Schroeder.

What we have had, in a general market sense, is exclusively GRPs, which isn’t much in an increasingly multi-channel and multimedia accessible world. But, in full disclosure, I was an advocate of the push towards audience engagement metrics led by Carat early-on.

Back in 03 - I was a presenter on audience measurement metrics on the panel 'Beyond GRP's’ at the World Audience Measurement Conference in 2003. A strong case was made then for different and more descriptive audience measurement systems as well as passive measurement technologies that were in use by many European media and research companies.

I’m still an advocate simply for the fact that in an increasingly fragmented and time-delayed media world.– ‘what are you going to do – nothing’? Even Apple’s added an FM tuner and video camera to their I-Pod Nano.

My Advertising

With the year coming to a close, my mind and memory turns to the selection ‘My Top TV Commercials’ of the year, which is a matter I do not take lightly, and frankly obsess over. Although I know what my # 1 is and why -- I would say that my #2 might be Levi Strauss’s ‘The New Americans Go Forth’ campaign, et al. The television spot has a lot of visual and aural mystery in it that gets me every time. I guess that’s why I love Robert Altman films so.

Yet, Levi Strauss’s ‘The New Americans Go Forth’ campaign (I’ve seen television and on-line applications) – rings hollow for me. Levi Strauss has no – shall we say - “street credibility” in my view in being apart of the ‘New America’ or the new American frontier, which should be more aptly named the new American urban frontier or pioneers. It’s like they tried to slip this one by after 20 years of … just-in-time manufacturing.

I’ve still got a black pair of Levi's (above) from about 15 years ago as well as a pair that I bought in the last 6 months, and they really don’t compare in sizing terms.

My Management

I’m not sure where Levi/Dockers has been for the past 20 years in American life. What I do know is that they perfected just-in-time-inventory controls and manufacturing that I project resulted in my Dockers and jeans being manufactured so tightly that I’m amazed that there was enough material in them to sewn together at all.

I recently bought a pair of “Relaxed Fit jeans” in the past 6 months one size larger than my new normal size and just figured they should work, but they still don’t compare to the black pair of Levis that I bought almost 2 decades ago that I can still get in and they still give me room to breathe without any relaxed fit labeling. Relaxed fit being Levi’s, Lee’s, and Wranglers counter to:

1) Carpenter Pants

2) the Baggy Jeans

3) Cargo Pants.

As Levi’s started to manufacture their jeans and chinos tighter and tighter (less material) -- a lot of ‘bigger’ and normal sized guys found greater comfort in more loosely fitting casual pants – I for one did. But, don’t get me wrong here, because I’m no big fan of how some boys, young men or Jay-Z wearing their jeans hanging down etc.

But, I’m amazed at how many ole, G’s like me across lines are now bespoke in a pair of baggy carpenter jeans or cargo pants, because bottom-line they are just more comfortable. Furthermore, the physical size of America’s boys and men have become larger not smaller, which is a physiological metric that I’ve seen in studies by the trade group Cotton Inc.

My Marketing

So, I guess what am I saying about Levi’s -- is that making a media and marketing campaign that says or shows Levis’ as hip, with it, and on-top-of-it with the new America and New Americans is a bit of a stretch for me, and as I cited it somehow rings hollow. Maybe Trend Influence, their market intelligence and branding shop, did not take into account this credibility gap, or maybe they thought that nobody would notice or be wise to the fact that Levis has been missing in action over the past 20 years, which is just about the tenure of Hip-hop culture in the U.S. and globally as well.

Did they think any association of the “baggy jeans” and Hip-hop culture were not a part of the New America or Americans? Clearly, what the urban market wants and wears – so too do the men and boys around the world want and wear. For better or worse missing the real trend influence of the hip-hop culture changing American men and boys tastes and fashion towards bigger more casual pants is questionable at best. Like I said in the beginning, although it’s a really nice spot, its kinda like the Levi jeans that I bought recently – something about them just doesn’t sit or fit right.

My Sports

Things have gotten so bad for me and my home football team – the
Carolina Panthers that I’ve now started to support the Bengals– my other home team. However, the Bengals lost this week and the Panthers won, but I’m sticking to my guns: “Who dey think going to beat them Bengals”. The ‘Who-dey’ parlance is a local Cincinnati reference to what was once a locally brewed beer – Hudepohl, aka ‘a Hu-de’ and Who-dey.

My Customer Service

My ‘Brown Skin’ Service Award goes to an unnamed and unheralded Red Robin restaurant waitress that served our contingent of “intelligentia” after attending a talk/lecture by Deborah Willis about her new book Posing Beauty at the Center for Documentary Studies in Durham, NC. The waitress was wonderfully adept, gracious and had a great smile. I might have thought I was at a Michelin 3 star with her service instead of a Red Robin, but these days it just goes to show you – you never know.