The encyclopedia · Advertising & PR · Marketing decision · 2019
Bonds launched a recycled line by recycling 100 years of its own ads
To launch its 45%-recycled line, Bonds re-used its iconic ads instead of making new ones; the campaign reached 18.2 million and won Epica gold and silver.
Bonds
the move
Bonds, one of Australia's oldest fashion brands, created its first sustainable range, Re-Loved, made with up to 45% recycled material. A conventional launch would have contradicted the promise: new shoots, sets and travel are exactly the waste the range was built against.
Leo Burnett Melbourne created nothing new. The team re-loved 100 years of Bonds' most iconic advertising: old print ads became social posts, old TVCs became online films, and a model from the 1970s returned as the campaign's influencer — a full digital suite with almost no carbon footprint.
The campaign reached 18,262,757 people, and the re-loved influencer's Instagram post scored the highest positive sentiment of any organic Bonds post ever. Epica gave the work a Gold and a Silver in 2019.
why it works
- The campaign's form proved the product's claim: a recycled range launched by recycled advertising is an argument the audience can see.
- A century of brand heritage is free creative inventory — instantly recognizable and already produced.
- Minimal new production kept the campaign's own carbon cost tiny, making the sustainability story hard to attack.
what transfers
When the product's virtue is reuse, the campaign should embody it: recycling brand heritage cuts cost and carbon and makes the sustainability story self-evident — the medium shows it.
what came after
Re-Loved established Bonds' sustainability line, and the campaign became a reference for low-carbon launches; Epica recognized it with Gold and Silver in 2019.
references
- Leo Burnett picks up Gold and Silver at the Epica Awards 2019
- Leo Burnett 'Bonds Re-Loved' — Epica Awards 2019 winner
- Bonds Re-loved — Direct New Ideas, Issue 53
spotted an error? The archive wants to know.