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Bonds’ booty shakin’ takes out May Ad Impact Award—UPDATED

Showing good looking human specimens in their undies is a well-proven advertising strategy. Often it’s all a bit OTT, with ridiculous smell the fart acting and liberal photoshopping. But Bonds has kept it casual, upbeat and slightly self-aware with its latest campaign, leading to a win in the May round of the Colmar Brunton Ad Impact Award. 

“Bonds is all about being loud, fun and playful,” says New Zealand marketing manager and underwear enthusiast Will Radford. “The Shop Your Style campaign, along with showing booty shaking humans, was aimed to show Kiwis that there is a Bonds style for everyone.” And to show that those styles are available instore or through bonds.com.au (there’s no bonds.co.nz just yet). 

The campaign was created by Banjo Advertising and launched in Australia in August last year in an effort to fight back against private label (PL) underwear brands. With Collective was behind the digital extensions and as it explains on its website

“Australians have had a tough few years, they have been forced to re-assess their financial priorities, and as a result have become much more comfortable with choosing generic and home brands. They are willing to pay up, but need to find inherent value, much beyond a price point in the products and services they buy. A brand needs to identify with them on a deeper level, to speak the same language and provide something to them they can’t find anywhere else.”

The end line was modified slightly for the New Zealand market (it’s changed from ‘Shop your Shape’ to ‘Shop your Style’). And while it’s not a completely new path for the brand to follow, given it has done high energy and colourful ads in the past, Colmar Brunton’s account director Harriet Dixon​ says this execution does a good job of showcasing the full range of the Bonds underwear available “in a entertaining, persuasive way”.

“It seems that gorgeous young things in undies dancing around to a great beat is a real winner with the public, scoring well above average in being really involving and distinctive,” says Dixon. “In addition, the ad delivered on branding, giving Bonds a healthy boost of brand appeal … No surprises that the opportunity to check out babin’ models in their underwear is attractive for many, and gives Bonds the edge for May’s ad award.” 

The Health Promotion Agency’s ‘Yeah, Nah’ ad by DraftFCB also scored highly in May, despite some confusion over it. 

“The social campaign developed to ease up on the drink has great recognition and performed well on the persuasion metric,” says Dixon. “It also has great talkability scores, not surprising considering the amount of discussion on Facebook about the ad, including a page titled ‘Ok bro, no more beersies for you.’  

“The campaign seems to have hit the right note and tapped into something in the Kiwi psyche with both ‘yeah nah’ and ‘no more beersies for you’ already becoming part of the Kiwi vernacular,” says Tane Cassidy, HPA general manager of communications.

“We believe the response is in part because the ad is solution focused: it offers people an easy way to say no to a drink without making themselves or their friends feel uncomfortable.”

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