The Super Bowl is more than a game. It’s the biggest media moment in the country, complete with a set of cultural rituals and societal expectations that make the big game the perfect stage for brand marketers.
Nowhere else in the calendar year do you get a third of the country standing shoulder-to-shoulder, actively engaged, and actually awaiting their favorite pastime to be interrupted by ads. Of course, this is why marketers spend a small fortune trying to seize the opportunity, paying upwards of $8 million for 30 seconds of airtime during the game. And, perhaps, no other brand more successfully took advantage of this year’s festivities than Levi’s.
The 173-year-old denim brand made its return to the Super Bowl with its first ad in over two decades. But Levi’s didn’t stop there; it used this moment to do something more meaningful on its own terms.
From its start, Levi’s has been a brand committed to progress. It pioneered durable denim for rugged workwear with the first-ever waist overalls for miners during the Gold Rush, introduced the first pair of women’s jeans, and continues to be a leader in the category through increased sustainability efforts.
As Kenny Mitchell, the Global CMO of Levi Strauss & Co., puts it, “Levi’s is a brand committed to outfitting the world’s Originals who strive to make progress every day.” That explains its partnership with artists like Beyoncé and brands like Nike, who push culture and sport forward.
With this strategy in place, Levi’s launched a new global campaign called “Behind Every Original” that celebrates the everyday individuals who are committed to progress.
The campaign debuted during the Super Bowl game with a film called Backstory that featured iconic, game-changing moments that were outfitted in Levi’s. Bruce Springsteen’s Born In The U.S.A. album cover, George Michael’s “Faith” music video, and the entrance from Woody, the wooden cowboy toy from the breakthrough animated film Toy Story.
The ad doesn’t rely solely on the brand’s past, though; it also features contemporary Originals like 2025 NBA MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, K-Pop Superstar Rosé, and 2025 Best New Artist Grammy Award winner Doechii.
The twist, however, is that all the vignettes of these Originals — both past and present — are captured entirely from their backside, with the Levi’s Red Tab brand asset just as prominent as the celebrities themselves. This is no easy feat, of course. Ask any marketer, and they’ll testify to the potential challenges of their brand being overshadowed by a celebrity endorser – a story of caution for Super Bowl advertising, in particular, where celebrity cameos have become standard fare.
But that’s not the case for Levi’s.
In the Backstory anthem, the brand is front and center, setting the stage for something reminiscent of Apple’s classic iPod+iTunes silhouettes campaign. In the Apple ads that featured artists like U2, Eminem and Coldplay, the brand never got lost in the sauce, if you will.
Instead, the artist’s performance, much like the dancing silhouettes holding the iPod, provided a vehicle for the brand’s storytelling and product proposition. It was a story only Apple could tell—a thousand songs in your pocket to keep you moving as you’re on the move.
So is the same with Levi’s. “Backstory” showcases the backside silhouettes of famous Originals on the move as a means of telling the Levi’s story — one of individuals who have been outfitted in the brand as they move throughout the world and attempt to push it forward. Behind every Original is a backstory and, according to Levi’s, more likely than not, it’s donning the Red Tab.
Beyond the ad, Levi’s took advantage of its hometown advantage. Super Bowl LX was played in the San Francisco-based brand’s backyard — at its namesake, no less, Levi’s Stadium.
So, just about every commercial break was a shout-out to the Levi’s brand, not unlike when the 2023 Super Bowl LVII was hosted in Glendale, Arizona, at the State Farm Stadium. However, Levi’s, as a cultural icon, decided to use the geography as an opportunity to pay homage to the cultural Originals who put The Bay on the map.
Partnering with the San Francisco-based record label, Empire, the two brands created an immersive pop-up experience in San Francisco’s historic 1 Montgomery Building—now home to Empire.
Aptly titled “Home Turf,” the experience showcased Levi’s contribution to sports through its custom collaborations with Brand Jordan and archived Empire’s 16 years of breaking artists like Kendrick Lamar, Anderson .Paak, Migos, and country-star Shaboozey, who also partnered with Levi’s for an ad campaign last year. The activation was elevated with live performances from Bay-Area stars like E-40, Goapele, and Souls of Mischief in a specially curated, traveling NPR Tiny Desk session, the first of its kind outside of its Washington D.C. home, where NPR is headquartered.
Beyond their geographical lineage, the two brands — Levi’s and Empire — make for good bedfellows, not merely because of where they’re from but because of where they’re going. That’s the fine balance that Levi’s struck during this year’s Super Bowl festivities — a wink at the past with an eye toward the future. And if this is any indication, then the brand’s legacy in culture, as rich as it is, may very well be more of a footnote in its backstory than the full story.
Levi’s has been experiencing strong sales growth over recent years. However, it seems as though the brand’s best days are still ahead of itself, because the Behind Every Original campaign does something that Levi’s has not yet done in its almost 200 years of existence: It’s now invited other Originals to tell their story, too.
And if the best stories aren’t the ones we tell but the ones that we inspire other to tell, then Levi’s may have just cracked the code to fully leverage the power of the Super Bowl as a contemporary storytelling medium—not just the stories in the form of fireworks that we call ads, but the aggregate of stories around the campfire that we call culture.
Considering the Originals that Levi’s has outfitted over the years, I can only imagine how compelling those stories will surely be.
The views expressed in this column are those of the author, Marcus Collins – best-selling author of For The Culture and clinical professor at the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan – and do not necessarily reflect the views of Brand Innovators.
