Revisiting the launderette
Do you remember the Levi’s ‘Launderette’ commercial? Even if you weren't around when it first aired, its impact on popular culture is hard to miss. This ad marked the beginning of Levi’s imperial phase in popular culture, a reign that lasted over a decade. It boosted sales of the classic 501 jeans eightfold and transformed them into the uniform of the 1980s. It propelled "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" into the Top 10, turned Nick Kamen into a minor celebrity, brought boxer shorts back into fashion, and cemented BBH’s reputation as the coolest ad agency in London.
‘Launderette’ is turning 40 this year.
Do you recall last year’s remake, featuring Beyoncé and her track ‘Levii’s Jeans’? Despite Beyoncé's star power, the remake didn't quite capture the magic of the original. Why is that?
Back in 1985, ‘Launderette’ was lightning in a bottle. It seemed authentic and urgent. Authentic because it was steeped in nostalgia and captured an essential truth about the brand as a reliable American staple. Urgent because it felt genuinely rebellious and sexy. Putting a hunky guy in his underpants on television was subversive back then.
The 2024 version, despite its cast and soundtrack, lacked spark. In today’s context, offering Queen B’s generous curves to the gaze of an audience was deemed problematic rather than sexy. You can imagine the casting director’s headache putting the ‘audience’ together: a non-binary person (woke), a man who looked a bit like Nick Kamen (sexist), a couple of teenage fans (inappropriately young), etc. Where was the authenticity? Where was the urgency? The connections to the brand’s origins and its role in today’s culture were lost. It quickly faded into obscurity.
Could it have gone a different way?
Could Levi’s have reclaimed its erstwhile cultural mojo – even for a moment? Having one of the biggest pop stars of our time create a track named after them was an incredible opportunity. Did they squander it? More importantly, can any advertising campaign today, in our fragmented, accelerated, forever expanding digital world, have the same impact as it could hope to achieve in the pre-internet days?