Profile: Shumone Chatterjee, VP marketing for APAC at Levi's

Think jeans and you will undoubtedly think Levi’s. The brand, which came into existence in 1873, has an iconic status and is salient across the world. And the man behind the scenes in the region is the youthful Shumone Chatterjee, recently appointed as vice-president of marketing at Levi’s Asia-Pacific. 

Always on the (marketing) job, in his spare time Chatterjee watches people. “I watch how they move, how they behave, and how they interact with brands,” he says. “I walk down Orchard Road in Singapore to see how young people are living their lives. I go to the malls to see how they congregate and the different brands they use.”

It’s fitting therefore that Chatterjee was one of the masterminds behind the recent global launch of Levi’s women’s line of jeans - Curve ID - designed to focus on shape and not size. 

“Our insights show that women have to try on about eight to 10 pairs of jeans before they find the right pair. Often they aren’t comfortable with what they are wearing, and what they buy is usually a compromise. Brands have put pressure on women to wear the perfect fit. We said it should instead be about shape,” he explains.

Levi’s, which first sold jeans to women in 1935, launched three different Curve ID designs: Slight Curve - designed to celebrate straighter more athletic figures; Demi Curve - designed to fit evenly proportioned ladies; and Bold Curve - this last design is in honour of genuine curves where ladies go in and out in all the right places.

And the response to the new designs? 

“It’s been fantastic,” Chatterjee enthuses. “It has changed the way women will buy jeans going forward. We got every single media partner we worked with for the launch to try the jeans across each market. Finally a fit that works for women not the other way round. They are very happy.”

As a brand that has a presence in 110 countries the company’s approach to the launch, as with all Levi’s campaigns, has been both global and local. 

“Our ‘Believe’ campaign for Curve ID took a unified, partnering approach and we wanted the consumer to look at our brand in the same way so we added an activation wrap around the visual experience. This is the mantra. We then ask how do you make this mantra relevant in each market? We used global media, and global communication trends to anchor the market and strategy,” Chatterjee says.

Levi’s approach is always universal, asking whether it has a presence in the right media for that particular market. So in Japan the brand had exclusive tie-ups with ViVi and In Glamorous for the initial Levi’s Curve ID launch while a global online community - ShapeWhatsToCome.com will soon be launched. 

This platform is based on a global study of Millennial women, where Levi’s got to better understand the challenges, expectations, goals and experiences they face. The site will be launched in the US, UK and Japan where Millennial women may then connect to shape their future. In addition, Levi’s will choose 20 inspiring Millennial ‘ambassadors’ to enrich the site with content. 

By arranging a partnership with the TV show Australia’s Next Top Model, the brand was able to spread awareness of the Curve ID campaign across multiple platforms, including in-store, digital, online and TV. In fact, as part of the tie-up, a Curve ID segment was integrated into one of the episodes. The winner of Australia’s Next Top Model, Amanda Ware, will also be the new face of Curve ID in Australia. 

Previously the high-profile head of marketing for Levi’s India, Chatterjee hasn’t had it all easy. He played a critical role in turning around the company’s fortunes after the brand floundered in the ’90s. Levi’s realised that it had failed to connect with the younger Indian market, something that is close to Chatterjee’s heart. “I have an 18 year-old girl and a 12 year-old boy,” he says. “They remind me that if I don’t keep up with them I will get old.” 

Levi’s found itself in a similar situation. So the company dropped prices, revisited retail strategy, changed the creative agency and worked with the media plan in a bid to get its act right. Chatterjee stepped into the top slot in India at a time when the parent company had put Dockers, a significant revenue earner and a brand that was important for the company’s fortunes in India, up for sale.

“It was a very interesting time for the fashion industry in India,” he understates. 

In 2001, it became clear that young men were interested in the brand while young women were in transition between ethnic clothes and jeans. Indian consumers were starting to emerge from their houses looking to have a social life outside of the family and home. 

Levi’s took the lead in premium jeans. It made wearing them the norm, even for women who traditionally had considered jeans too much of a sartorial shift. 

“We worked off global and international briefs but created a form that worked for the Indian market and the Indian body shape. We built a single market in India. It was led by a huge market-shaping culture.”

Levi’s India started its marketing push with TVCs and then quickly moved to using more local media such as popular fashion magazines and outdoor advertising. 

“We used 10 or more celebrities in the context that they reflected the different shapes of women. Priyanka Chopra, Akshay Kumar and most recently, Chitrangada Singh, Ileana D’Cruz and Jacqueline Fernandez. All were icons - Miss India’s with flourishing Bollywood careers. In India fashion and style originate from Bollywood. It’s unlike the West and the European countries where some designers and shops spread fashion rather than the celebrities,” says Chattejee. 

Owning a pair of iconic jeans in India came at what was for many locals a high cost -something of a sticking point. So Levi’s took consumer understanding one step further. It launched a pilot promotion programme under which Levi’s jeans, which retailed at US$30, were sold on a three-month time credit in the north east city of Bangalore. And it worked. Levi’s jeans marched out the door.

Chatterjee says a defining moment in his career is deeply connected to the values of the company and could be said to take engagement and consumer obsession to the next level. 

“Levi’s commitment to sustainability is so exciting. It’s not just about new products, it’s about playing a role in society. Minimising our global footprint, the chemical levels with which we wash our clothes - encouraging good laundry habits everywhere - getting the consumer to change the energy they use.”

Chatterjee cites ‘Levi’s Red for Life’ campaign as another example of this social conscience. Launched in 2005 in South Africa, this uses the Levi’s brand as a voice to reach out to consumers on the issues of HIV/AIDS, specifically raising awareness and funds for the education and treatment of people living with the disease. The initiative first started as a benefit concert, but has since expanded its reach beyond music to TV commercials, mobile testing, branded condoms and apparel. 

And if he wasn’t working at Levi’s what would he be doing? “

Apart from people watching, I want to be the oldest radio disc jockey in the world,” confesses Chatterjee. “I love music. I was in a couple of bands in India. But I still have to find one in Singapore that will take me.”