We spent two years making the shorts, and then we had to figure out how to actually tell people about them.
The easy option was a product video: close-ups of the fabric, someone holding up the shorts, a list of features scrolling past. That's what everyone does, and it's also what everyone skips past. We wanted something that felt like the brand, something that wasn't trying to sell you on anything but just showed you a world and let you decide if you wanted to be in it.
So we made a trilogy.
The idea
The starting point was Bertie, not as a character to introduce but as someone who already exists. He's been away, he's been working on something, and now he's back. That gave us three natural parts: his return, what he's been doing while he's been gone, and what his day actually looks like.
We didn't want it to feel like a launch because launches feel forced, it's always "here's our new product, look how good it is" and that's not how Bertie would do it. He'd just show up, and you'd notice.
Part 1 — Bertie's Back
The first part is a pub scene: fast cuts of a classic Aussie pub, beer being poured, feet on a sticky floor, pool table, blokes settling in at a table. Then the pace starts to slow down as a car pulls up outside, someone steps out and walks in, and the old regulars look up from their beers. Everything goes quiet. Then one of them says it: "Bertie's back."
That's the only line in the whole video.
We wanted Part 1 to feel like a moment rather than an ad, the kind of thing where you watch it and you're not entirely sure what it's for but you want to see what happens next. The pacing does all the work: it starts fast and punchy, slows right down as he arrives, and then lands on this beat of silence before the line hits.
No product shots, no logo until the end, just a feeling that something's arrived.
Part 2 — The Workshop
If Part 1 is Bertie arriving, Part 2 is what he's been doing while he's been gone.
It's darker and more intimate than the first one — tight shots of hands cutting fabric, sketches scattered across paper, sewing machines running, buttons and zips spread across a desk. You don't see the shorts properly until the very end when he gets up from the desk and walks away and they're just sitting there, and that's the reveal.
Ben narrates over the top — "Nothing good comes quick. Two years. Long nights. Closer each time. Same question every time, is this it? Never quite there. Until that moment when it clicks. And this is what it looks like when you finally nail it."
The whole thing alludes to the product without actually showing it, and you're watching someone make something and you can tell they care about it. That was the point — we didn't want to tell people we spent two years on this, we wanted them to feel it.
Part 3 — Day in the Life
Part 3 is the payoff, and it's all about the shorts and everything you can do in them.
Bertie wakes up, grabs the shorts, heads out for a morning surf, gets coffee at his spot, rides a bike through town, chats with a local, and ends up at the pub by golden hour — one pair of shorts, the whole day, no changing, no thinking about it.
It's brighter than the other two, more movement and colour and energy, and it connects back to Part 1 because the day ends at the same pub. The whole thing is circular.
This is the part that actually shows the product doing what it does — beach to bar in one pair. But because you've already seen the arrival and the craft behind it, the product means something by the time you get here. You're not just looking at shorts, you're looking at the result of everything you saw in Part 2 being worn by the guy you met in Part 1.
Why a trilogy
Most brands do one campaign video, maybe two versions for different platforms. We did three because the story needed three parts — you can watch them individually and they each work on their own, but watched together they build something bigger than any single video could.
The other reason is that we wanted content that actually lasted. Three parts released over a week gives you a reason to come back, and each one ends with you wanting to see the next one. It's not a single post that disappears in 24 hours, it's a sequence.
We're three mates who built these shorts from scratch, we're not a big brand with a big budget, so the campaign had to do a lot with a little. We think it does.
How We Made Our First Campaign
We spent two years making the shorts, and then we had to figure out how to actually tell people about them.
The easy option was a product video: close-ups of the fabric, someone holding up the shorts, a list of features scrolling past. That's what everyone does, and it's also what everyone skips past. We wanted something that felt like the brand, something that wasn't trying to sell you on anything but just showed you a world and let you decide if you wanted to be in it.
So we made a trilogy.
The idea
The starting point was Bertie, not as a character to introduce but as someone who already exists. He's been away, he's been working on something, and now he's back. That gave us three natural parts: his return, what he's been doing while he's been gone, and what his day actually looks like.
We didn't want it to feel like a launch because launches feel forced, it's always "here's our new product, look how good it is" and that's not how Bertie would do it. He'd just show up, and you'd notice.
Part 1 — Bertie's Back
The first part is a pub scene: fast cuts of a classic Aussie pub, beer being poured, feet on a sticky floor, pool table, blokes settling in at a table. Then the pace starts to slow down as a car pulls up outside, someone steps out and walks in, and the old regulars look up from their beers. Everything goes quiet. Then one of them says it: "Bertie's back."
That's the only line in the whole video.
We wanted Part 1 to feel like a moment rather than an ad, the kind of thing where you watch it and you're not entirely sure what it's for but you want to see what happens next. The pacing does all the work: it starts fast and punchy, slows right down as he arrives, and then lands on this beat of silence before the line hits.
No product shots, no logo until the end, just a feeling that something's arrived.
Part 2 — The Workshop
If Part 1 is Bertie arriving, Part 2 is what he's been doing while he's been gone.
It's darker and more intimate than the first one — tight shots of hands cutting fabric, sketches scattered across paper, sewing machines running, buttons and zips spread across a desk. You don't see the shorts properly until the very end when he gets up from the desk and walks away and they're just sitting there, and that's the reveal.
Ben narrates over the top — "Nothing good comes quick. Two years. Long nights. Closer each time. Same question every time, is this it? Never quite there. Until that moment when it clicks. And this is what it looks like when you finally nail it."
The whole thing alludes to the product without actually showing it, and you're watching someone make something and you can tell they care about it. That was the point — we didn't want to tell people we spent two years on this, we wanted them to feel it.
Part 3 — Day in the Life
Part 3 is the payoff, and it's all about the shorts and everything you can do in them.
Bertie wakes up, grabs the shorts, heads out for a morning surf, gets coffee at his spot, rides a bike through town, chats with a local, and ends up at the pub by golden hour — one pair of shorts, the whole day, no changing, no thinking about it.
It's brighter than the other two, more movement and colour and energy, and it connects back to Part 1 because the day ends at the same pub. The whole thing is circular.
This is the part that actually shows the product doing what it does — beach to bar in one pair. But because you've already seen the arrival and the craft behind it, the product means something by the time you get here. You're not just looking at shorts, you're looking at the result of everything you saw in Part 2 being worn by the guy you met in Part 1.
Why a trilogy
Most brands do one campaign video, maybe two versions for different platforms. We did three because the story needed three parts — you can watch them individually and they each work on their own, but watched together they build something bigger than any single video could.
The other reason is that we wanted content that actually lasted. Three parts released over a week gives you a reason to come back, and each one ends with you wanting to see the next one. It's not a single post that disappears in 24 hours, it's a sequence.
We're three mates who built these shorts from scratch, we're not a big brand with a big budget, so the campaign had to do a lot with a little. We think it does.