A flocking nightmare: Kiwibank’s 'sexy' sheep mascot goes global for all the wrong reasons

For years, New Zealanders have endured jokes about sheep and, ahem, relations.

The country has given the world Jacinda Ardern, The Lord of the Rings and ample evidence that it deserves a better national punchline.

Then came Kiwibank’s “sexy sheep”.

Buck, the CGI mascot fronting the bank’s “Bank Kiwi” campaign, has attracted a corner of the internet with feelings that go well beyond competitive interest rates.

The bank, being a bank, called in the lawyers; in response, the internet did what it does: posted more sheep jokes. The whole snafu was a woolly demonstration of the Streisand effect: trying to shut it down made the controversy so big that Americans have now picked it up, with John Oliver covering it on Last Week Tonight.

How the sheep hit the fan

The controversy began in July when an X user posted: “I want to f*** the Kiwibank sheep”, alongside a GIF featuring Buck.

Another user swiftly assessed the damage: “Years of effort to convince the world New Zealanders don’t want to f*** sheep has gone down the drain in one tweet”.

A difficult day for the national tourism board, presumably.

The post might have remained a passing internet joke. But Kiwibank engaged law firm MinterEllisonRuddWatts to issue copyright infringement notices under the American Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

The notices targeted posts across platforms, including X and Bluesky, and X began removing content featuring Buck in September.

An investigation by The Spinoff’s Hayden O’Donnell subsequently found multiple users who had received copyright notices after posting about the mascot.

Naturally, the crackdown only prompted more people to post about Buck. Et voile, the proverbial sheep was out of the bag.

The Streisand effect, with wool

Kiwibank’s response became a textbook example of the Streisand effect: trying to suppress something draws more attention to it.

The bank wanted fewer people discussing its mascot in explicitly sexual terms. Instead, its copyright notices gave people another reason to do so, along with a free-speech argument to bring into the comments.

Some users said their attraction to a cartoon sheep had been overstated.

“My tweet was a joke, obviously, I hope. I do not think the drawing of a sheep is sexy – put that in the paper,” one person told O’Donnell.

There are statements you imagine making to a journalist. And then there is that one.

Others, however, did consider Buck “an attractive sheep”, particularly within the furry community.

“She does have, what some have referred to as come-hither eyes, and particularly in the moment in the ad where she gets a haircut,” O’Donnell said.

“This is what’s really got people going.”

Somewhere, a creative team is gently rocking back and forth in their ergonomic chairs.

America meets Buck

What began as online chatter in New Zealand has now reached American late-night television, with Oliver devoting a segment to the controversy on Last Week Tonight.

“Kiwibank’s aggressive response was completely counterproductive,” he said.

“Basically, a lot of New Zealanders are going full I am Spartacus right now. If that is Spartacus, wanted to f*** the Kiwibank sheep,” he added.

Oliver played footage of O’Donnell discussing the copyright notices and the users who had received them, describing the insistence that one person did not find Buck sexy as “an incredible thing to feel the need to clarify.”

He also played part in the Kiwibank advertisement, questioning its promise to “buck the system”. Apparently, he would prefer his bank to operate comfortably within it.

A quiet retreat on social

Oliver noted that Kiwibank had largely stopped posting Buck on social media. The bank also disabled comments on posts featuring the mascot.

The bank has previously said the copyright notices were intended to protect its intellectual property, citing concerns about the sexualised nature of the posts.