In recent years, Levi's has used its Go Forth campaign, later known as the Legacy campaign, to market its product to millennials. A semiotic and psychoanalytic analysis of this campaign reveals contradictory messages of revolution, individuality, authenticity, and freedom. These messages inspire counter-hegemonic discourses about the advertisements. Focusing on the Go Forth advertisements produced in 2011, specifically a television spot filmed in Berlin called Go Forth 2011, and an accompanying print advertisement designed for the international market, I will examine the complexities of this campaign and the reasons that it created such a vocal discourse on media such as Youtube. Analysis of the male gaze and a comparison with the commercial "1984" for Macintosh computers will be useful in my analysis.

The first and last shot of this commercial is a scene of the ocean, presumably at sunrise. The last shot also features the slogan "Go Forth," followed by the Levi's logo superimposed over the scene of the ocean. The rest of the commercial takes the form of a montage of scenes, narrated by the poem "The Laughing Heart" by Charles Bukowski, a famous American poet. The decision to use a Bukowski poem is questionable since a Youtube parody of the earlier commercial, "O Pioneers," utilized Bukowski to mock Levi's claims about millennial youthhood. Additionally, "The Laughing Heart" is a rare poem out of the Bukowski canon because of its messages of optimism. This narration provides the backdrop for the messages produced by the commercial.