Hello faithful marketers. I come to you with a story of what I hoped would be a fruitful friendship with Levis, but quickly turned into a selfish ME ME ME story - how disappointing!

Where did the friendship begin?

Last Saturday evening a real, living, breathing friend of mine shot me a message that one of favorite bands was going to be streamed live from Levi’s Facebook fan page.

I thought - AWESOME

I must say as a consumer, in general and because I lived in San Francisco for most of the decade, I was excited that Levi’s seemed to understand the social media value exchange equation. We were on the road to court each other for awhile. I kid you not - with seeing their FB page and recognizing the things that they were going to do for me, their new friend, I immediately put them into my consideration set for Jeans. And, for anyone that knows me - I’m a jeans guy. I probably buy 30 pair a year. Yes, I love me some jeans

I am what most brands would consider a fairly heavy influencer. And, I immediately shot the news to my network and it even made its way into a few of my phone calls because I was genuinly exciting about a few upcoming events. I also liked the way that Levi’s was utilizing and apparently understanding the social space.

It’s good to see brands understand that consumers are demanding value and Levi’s was delivering on that value by providing valuable content to me.

That was Saturday

As of Monday morning I’ve come to the harsh realization that Levi’s is not my friend, not even close. Apparently, they couldn’t wait to capitalize on their new found equity that they had earned with me.

Monday morning

I’m getting emails from Amazon telling me that I’ll get free shipping if i buy Levi’s ( I DO NOT think this was coincidental). I felt like my privacy was invaded. Then, I logged onto FB and Levi’s is beaming ads at me on the screen.

WOW! Is this for real? We just met on Saturday

Couldn’t you have waited a little while? Perhaps even romanced our friendship a wee bit before you came in with the hard sell? I mean I thought we were going places.