Latest / Best of Business / Mike Lee: UOA marketing professor on Kiwibank responding to online controversy over mascot sheep

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Mike Lee: UOA marketing professor on Kiwibank responding to online controversy over mascot sheep · Best of Business

• 0:09
  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from Newstalk ZB. Follow this
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  Speaker 1: Kiwibank has finally responded to this online drama about its
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  Speaker 1: new mascot, Buck the Sheep. People have been making erotic
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  Speaker 1: content about this sheep. Kiwibank then hired lawyers to have
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  Speaker 1: those posts removed. And then late night talk show host
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  Speaker 1: over in the States, John Oliver, weighed in.
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  Speaker 2: Kiwi Bank's aggressive response was completely counterproductive, as apparently for
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  Speaker 2: every lustful post killed by a legal threat, another 10
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  Speaker 2: took its place. In fact, people started posting in solidarity,
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  Speaker 2: saying things like, I'm a Kiwi Bank customer, and I
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  Speaker 2: demand you allow social media users to sexualize that sheep,
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  Speaker 2: or I'll move my money to a bank that will.
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  Speaker 1: Kiwi Bank has now posted a video to its Instagram
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  Speaker 1: in which Buck the sheep responds. But you're just an
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  Speaker 1: animated sheep.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: I am literally an animated sheep. But you know what
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  Speaker 2: really ruffles my fleece?
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  Speaker 1: This happens a lot, okay?
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  Speaker 2: It happens to a lot of people.
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  Speaker 3: Way more than you realize.
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  Speaker 1: Mike Lee is a marketing professor at Auckland University and
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  Speaker 1: with us now.
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  Speaker 3: Hi, Mike.
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  Speaker 1: Hi. Is this a case of all news is good
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  Speaker 1: news for KiwiBank?
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  Speaker 3: Well, it certainly has gotten a lot more attention internationally
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  Speaker 3: than probably what they were expecting, right?
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, I would consider it a bit of
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  Speaker 1: a coup, regardless of what we're actually, the weirdness of this.
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  Speaker 1: It's a bit of a coup to get onto John Oliver,
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  Speaker 1: isn't it?
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  Speaker 3: Absolutely. And have you heard of the hear-me-out phenomena? No.
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  Speaker 3: okay so the hear me out look this up uh
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  Speaker 3: your listeners can also look this up the hear me
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  Speaker 3: out phenomena uh gained prominence in 2024 as a viral
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  Speaker 3: tick-tock ritual where people defend their most unhinged fictional crushes
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  Speaker 3: you know so think about you know for the ladies
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  Speaker 3: out there maybe optimus prime or for people who like
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  Speaker 3: a bad boy maybe scar from lion king so you
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  Speaker 3: know we're not talking about a psychiatric disorder that's like
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  Speaker 3: mechanophilia or zoophilia It's a joke, and I think the
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  Speaker 3: issue is that Kiwi Bank mistook a joke for a
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  Speaker 3: threat and ended up bringing a sledgehammer to the playground
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  Speaker 3: using copyright law as a form of censorship. This, of course,
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  Speaker 3: then draws more attention to it. I mean, when you
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  Speaker 3: try to stop someone, then more people pay attention to it.
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  Speaker 3: This is known as the Streisand effect. And inadvertently, I
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  Speaker 3: think Kiwi Bank's turned casual jokers into free speech activists.
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  Speaker 1: Would you say that? I mean, for a hot minute there,
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  Speaker 1: they were completely overreacting, as you say, but have they
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  Speaker 1: rescued it by responding in the way that they have?
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  Speaker 3: There's a bit of a weird irony that's happening with
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  Speaker 3: that response, which I've seen with, I guess, Buck addressing
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  Speaker 3: the harassment that he or she has faced. What might
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  Speaker 3: happen is that treating a fictional sheep as a victim
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  Speaker 3: of sexual harassment may actually have the unintended effect of
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  Speaker 3: diminishing the severity of real-world human victims of sexual harassment.
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  Speaker 1: Oh, Lord, no, this doesn't sound like you think they've
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  Speaker 1: played this well at all.
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  Speaker 3: No, I think what they... You manage these sorts of
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  Speaker 3: means by leaning into them rather than by suing each
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  Speaker 3: permutation and taking it too seriously. So, I mean, what
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  Speaker 3: they probably should have done is bypassed the legal action,
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  Speaker 3: dropped a single tweet. Mate, she's an animated sheep. She
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  Speaker 3: doesn't even have a phone number. Responded to that guy
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  Speaker 3: immediately like that. And so what that would have done
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  Speaker 3: is disarmed the joke, protected the brand and probably shown
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  Speaker 3: the Internet that Kiwi Bank is happy not taking themselves
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  Speaker 3: too seriously, which, you know, is probably what people expect
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  Speaker 3: from a Kiwi bank.
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  Speaker 1: Fair point from you, Mike. Hey, thanks very much. I'm
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  Speaker 1: tempted to ask you what your weird crush was, but
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  Speaker 1: I think we'll probably leave it there.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, let's leave it there.
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  Speaker 1: Mike Lee, Auckland University marketing professor, because he definitely played
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  Speaker 1: that game. Hey, he's definitely played Hear Me Out.