Levis: This Country Was Built By Slaves

The above Levi’s campaign, which was lauded by AdWeek and lambasted by AdAge, is summed up by one black magic marker and the unknown source of the scrawled words, “by slaves”.

On her site, Director of Global Trends at Global Hue Christine Huang put it like this. “Levis (or rather W+K) is glorifying these centuries old American ideals &#151 Optimism! Egoism! Manifest Destiny! &#151 while making paltry gestures towards the reality of American history and what America is today. Besides the few ethnic actors in the video, their print campaign is disappointingly monochromatic and seems almost unapologetically alienating. It would have been really amazing to see Levis pay homage to the symbols of true individuality from our past &#151 the Freedom riders, abolitionists, Suffragists, veterans. ‘The Frontier’ is sexy and all, but how about some real American heroes?”

Now you go.

Note: The “by slaves” remark was not part of the original poster. Someone passing by added it, we presume.

More: “Applause: BBH UK’s Levi’s Print Ads”

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