Robert Irwin, the son of the late Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin, helped Bonds soar in its U.S. debut. The Australian underwear brand revealed its first campaign dedicated to the American market on April 3, featuring the conservationist in different underwear styles alongside wild animals. The campaign generated $8 million in media impact value in its first week, according to Launchmetrics. (MIV is a proprietary metric that assigns an actual monetary value to marketing strategies across print, online and social media to calculate return on investment.)
In perspective, Irwin’s campaign earned 7 percent more in media exposure than the brand generated in the entire year of 2024. According to Launchmetrics, the Australian star served as the top voice of the campaign, generating $3 million in MIV through his social media posts, with the top placement being worth $959,000 in MIV.
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According to Bonds, the campaign achieved impressive numbers on social media, including 1.3 million TikTok searches for the term “Robert Irwin bonds ad” in the first four days of the campaign. The brand reported a 96 percent growth on TikTok, with the top video garnering more than 23 million views.
The brand’s partnership with Iriwn also paid off in organic social impressions, which were up 7,000 percent for the week of launch, reaching more than 58 million people worldwide, according to Bonds. Meanwhile, organic social engagement rate was up 926 percent during the week of launch, with audience response being 98 percent positive on social media.
Since the campaign was released, Irwin has won more than 700,000 followers on TikTok, where he shows videos of his life as a zookeeper and conservationist.
Titled “Made for Down Under,” Bonds’ first U.S. campaign was wild-themed and also featured rapper Tkay Maidza.
“Bonds has a long history of celebrating Aussie talent in our campaigns, so it was only right that we partner with Australia’s biggest rising stars to celebrate our launch into the U.S. market,” Tanya Deans, president of Bonds Australia, told WWD. “We needed fearless spokespeople to show just how laid back you feel when you’re wearing Bonds undies — and who better than the wildlife warrior himself, Robert Irwin,” Deans said.
