For a midsize independent agency with one office in Philadelphia, Quaker City Mercantile has done more than its fair share of work for European brands with global reach.

Lee Cooper is Europe's oldest maker of denim (est. 1908) and is already a huge brand, especially in France. However, over the last couple of decades, the brand has faded and was in desperate need of reinvigoration, just like Puma. In fact, Lee Cooper's new marketing team was at Puma when Quaker City Mercantile first worked its magic there during the '90s. So, they knew first hand about Quaker City Mercantile's mythic powers in bringing heritage brands back from the dead.

Quaker City Mercantile dug deep into Lee Cooper's core DNA and developed a brand essence and brand architecture that influenced everything from store development, to product development to marketing and viral programs. (Like always, we are consumed with every touch point of a brand with the consumer.)

Everything we've done on Lee Cooper springs from a key insight on the brand, especially our development of their viral music program and the jeans' inseparable cultural connection to British music. Lee Cooper is a British brand born of the British working class. And the British working class is where all the great British music comes from—all of it. And music is the UK's biggest global export; they own it the way Hollywood owns the movies. And Lee Cooper can own it because it's been around since 1908.

In doing all of this thinking, we began to think about how American brands like Levi's and Jack Daniels celebrate their down and dirty working class roots while British brands do not (at least we couldn't find any). So, we decided to use this angle for the brand because it's ownable and completely unique in the marketplace. And we could tie in the British music born of the British working class to bring the brand to life.

The initial campaign stared The Rifles, a hot new band signed to Universal that sound a lot like the Jam. We also threw a massive party at the MAGIC sportswear show in Vegas with the legendary Buzzcocks.