New Zealand bank’s sheep mascot kicks off unlikely free speech row

Kiwibank invites backlash for trying to shut down ‘explicit’ memes sexualising sheep mascot

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The mascot of a New Zealand bank has become the subject of an unlikely controversy over the right to make memes.

The bank unveiled “Buck” on 3 July in a marketing campaign showing a cute sheep with green wool, urging consumers to “bank Kiwi”.

It didn’t take long for bizarre posts to appear on social media, some sexualising Buck and others stating that they wanted to “f***” it”.

A spokesperson said Kiwibank had acted to protect its intellectual property and because it worried that sexualised material involving Buck could be harmful and illegal.

The bank’s notices led to the removal of posts by at least 10 X accounts and a number of Bluesky artists, according to Spinoff.

“What if we all say the Kiwibank sheep is sexy. They can’t get us all,” an online user posted.

“The first five weeks after that ad campaign launched, out of the 10 Tiktoks they posted, six featured Buck,” he said.

“But since then they have posted 18 times and the sheep is in exactly none of them. Basically, the sheep has gone.”

“Whether people found the posts funny, offensive or simply baffling, they were jokes about a bank's mascot. At least one used Kiwibank's own advertising image, unaltered, with the joke in the caption,” the advocacy group said.

It reiterated that “fair use allows people to use copyright material without permission for commentary, criticism and parody, and a joke about an ad is exactly that kind of use”.