Walt Whitman and the Levi's Ad

Wieden + Kennedy uses the words of Walt Whitman in their current work for Levi's (the "America" and "Pioneer" spots in the "Go Forth" campaign). They actually use Whitman's voice as well, recovering it from wax cylinders from the 1880s. At first, it feels presumptuous. Whitman is perhaps the American poet. He helped grasp what America was and fashion the ideas that made it something we could think. It is not too much to say he helped found America. To see his language and voice leveraged for commercial purposes, is at first a little breathtaking.