• by Sarah Mahoney , May 1, 2008

Dockers, the Levi Strauss division best known for suiting up paunchy suburbanites, is trying an increasingly common route to reach a younger male audience--inviting them to create their own ad.

The campaign started earlier this week, kicked off by a "livemercial" that aired on "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno" as a jumping-off point. The skit, which had a Leno sidekick sporting Dockers duds, got an additional boost from Leno, who reminded viewers that Dockers was one of the show's sponsors. The ad steered viewers to a microsite, nbc.com/dockers.

While such contests have become routine for brands that are eager to find the young men who used to watch TV--like the Doritos and the National Football League contests --this one claims to be different because it uses its own social networking platform, Mixercast.

"Viewers can search and upload the commercial and interact with the brand," says Jennifer Cooper, CEO of Mixercast. "Then they can create their ad, it gets circulated through the platform, and in two months, the winning spot gets to appear on 'The Tonight Show.' It's a complete, 360-degree campaign--instead of just running a 30-second spot, it turns into a two-month-long event."

Cooper says that Dockers and NBC can review what goes out, "and they have the complete power to control the nature of the spots. This is a very specific event, not a bunch of random videos on YouTube."

In addition to its middle-aged stigma, Dockers has been struggling with the same issues as other apparel brands, as consumers tighten their elastic waistbands against the soft economy. And brands on the lower end of the economic spectrum--Dockers are sold in such stores as Sears, Mervyn's, Kohl's, and JC Penney--have had a tougher time than higher-end goods.

In its most recent quarter, Levi Straus says it experienced a small decline in Dockers sales.