Go Forth

Read the campaign story

Levi’s introduced Go Forth in July 2009 with Wieden+Kennedy Portland. A contemporary brand announcement carried by Fibre2Fashion describes Walt Whitman poetry as part of a campaign spanning film, print, outdoor, digital and retail. The communication connected the brand with a forward-looking idea of self-reliance rather than treating heritage only as a retrospective story.

A 2010 Levi’s release documents Ready to Work as a later Go Forth expression, including work-related stories and activity. This study counts those developments within the original platform rather than as separate campaigns. The records establish the intended message and executions. They do not demonstrate that advertising improved a community’s economic circumstances or caused a particular commercial result.

Editorial interpretation: poetry allows a brand to speak at a different emotional scale from ordinary product copy. It can connect an everyday garment with broader questions of identity and possibility. That reach is also a risk. The language may be remembered as an inspiring cultural statement while the product becomes incidental. Teams need to understand what the category contributes to the idea beyond placing its logo beside powerful words.

Editorial interpretation: a continuing invitation becomes more credible when people can do something relevant with it. Later activity can translate an abstract attitude into a practical experience, but the action must have value on its own. Community stories should not become visual shorthand for hardship overcome by a brand. Participants need agency, and claims about benefit require evidence separate from the emotional force of the film.

Find a cultural voice that fits the product’s role

Before selecting a poem or other cultural text, write down why the category belongs in the conversation. Consider the audience’s relationship to the source and how much context they need. A powerful text can overwhelm a weak connection. Use it only when the product or brand has a credible role, and distinguish the text’s meaning from any commercial interpretation added by the campaign.

Clear each layer of borrowed material

A historic written work, a particular performance and a sound recording can have different rights. Do not assume that an old poem makes every recording freely reusable. Verify permissions for the intended markets and formats, and credit contributors appropriately. This is both a production safeguard and a way to avoid treating cultural work as an anonymous emotional resource available to any advertiser.

Judge the action independently of the advertisement

If the platform expands into workshops or community support, define what participants receive and how usefulness will be assessed. Pay local expertise and avoid making promotional participation a condition of access. A programme that cannot justify itself without the campaign film may be serving the brand more than the audience. Report its actual outputs and limits rather than allowing a broad slogan to imply social transformation.

A small test for another brief

Proposed adaptation: commission an original short spoken-word piece about a real customer task and pair it with a practical, independently useful workshop, comparing comprehension with a plain-language invitation.

Measure whether people understand the brand’s role, can describe the workshop’s practical value and find the invitation appropriate. Evaluate workshop usefulness separately from views, shares or emotional response to the creative.

Stop if the cultural reference obscures the offer, rights remain unclear or community participants are reduced to symbolic evidence for an unsupported claim of social or economic change.

• Use an original writer and performer with agreed rights and visible credits.
• Partner with a qualified facilitator and describe exactly what the workshop offers.
• Keep attendance separate from filming consent and any product purchase.