Levi Strauss (LEVI) hopes a Beyoncé marketing campaign can boost brand growth.
The denim manufacturer announced its partnership with the music megastar, whose most recent album “Cowboy Carter” included a song called “Levii’s Jeans,” just before reporting third-quarter results.
“We are honored to be working with a global icon like Beyoncé, someone who stands for women’s empowerment and someone whose values align with ours,” said Levi Strauss & Co. CFO Harmit Singh told Yahoo Finance on Thursday. “And so our view is… this is a win-win for both Beyoncé and us.”
Shares of Levi Strauss rose 8% in the week after teasing its brand partnership with the all-time leading Grammy winner on September 23. But Levi’s shares fell 7.6% in the trading session following its third-quarter earnings report after the company dampened its stock. investors expected fourth-quarter sales and said it wanted to offload its struggling Docker’s pants business.
The partnership with Beyoncé “reinforces our focus” on womenswear
Levi’s leadership hopes a new Beyoncé commercial will boost consumer appeal, especially for its women’s business, which grew 11% in the third quarter and currently represents just over a third of Levi’s current sales.
“We believe this partnership reinforces our focus on women [business]Singh said. “Our women’s business is having another solid year, so I think this [partnership] continues to fuel that momentum.”
As part of the campaign, Beyoncé posted a series of photos and videos to Instagram that showed the artist and cultural icon wearing jeans and a gallon denim hat at a laundromat. The accompanying captions read: “Give you these Blues, it’s in my genes” and “Give you high fashion with a simple white T-shirt.”
The company also said it hopes to expand from a primarily denim pants brand to a “head-to-toe denim lifestyle brand,” as CEO Michelle Gass described during the Q3 earnings call.
Levi’s has accelerated its efforts to further delve into its denim, yoga and tops product pipeline.
“We want to get this [tops] the cases will be much higher,” Singh said. ‘We are now selling, I think, three bottoms to a top.’
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