From Beach Lover to Iconic Aussie Brand Founder: How Adam Linforth Built Budgy Smuggler

Adam Linforth may be Australia’s luckiest CEO. As founder and owner of iconic swimwear brand, Budgy Smuggler, he is basically guaranteed to spend a good portion of his year on the beach.

“There’s a lot of market research involved,” he says. “My friends used to joke that Budgy Smuggler was just a giant hobby, which it basically is. I guess I’ve wrangled a job that’s focused in areas I’m interested in. I think that comes through in the brand as well.”

And, although Linforth has had the opportunity to visit beaches all around the world, his heart remains tied to the sandy coves around Sydney Harbour, the places where he surfed as a kid and spent milestones with his family.

"If we've got international visitors, I always try to get them on the kayak and go to the little beaches on Sydney Harbour you can only get to by boat," he says. "There's a swim from Shelly to Manly, which I only first did when I was 27, even though I've been there all my life. It's like an underwater wonderland. There's big blue gropers; the wildlife's ridiculous."

Whenever he can find the time, Linforth loves to explore the coastline to Sydney's south, particularly in the Shoalhaven. "For road trips, my favourite beaches are all around Jervis Bay and the National Park, they're amazing. Wreck Bay and Vincentia," he says.

With Budgy Smuggler stores in Manly and Bondi, that summer-loving attitude is key to Budgy Smuggler’s marketing and communications strategy. The stories the company likes to tell naturally revolve around summer and surf - with a generous streak of ocker larrikinism for spice.

“We love the beach, we love sports, so we get them,” says Linforth. “We manufacture everything in Australia, so we can do really small runs. If there’s a funny moment in an NRL game, we’ll do a little cartoon pair that’s really niche. It taps into what the sporting community is feeling at that time.”

Fifteen years on, the brand still has a quintessentially Australian character, but has also developed a strong international following, with outlets in both the United Kingdom and France. This international expansion has led Linforth and his team to reflect the lives of its customers – both in Australia and abroad.

“It used to be all Aussie-led, but now there’s a lot more local personalities and locations. We’re doing a lot of local and hyperlocal stuff. It’s made in Australia, but it’s tailored to people in the regions,” says Linforth. “It’s really broadened, so it’s important for us to be able to segment, not just spray and hope, which might have been how it worked in the past.”

In order to more effectively distribute those tailored, hyperlocal stories to a diverse audience, Budgy Smuggler turned to marketing automation platform Klaviyo, which allows Linforth and his team to automate its communications and power smarter digital relationships.

“It absolutely helps us to segment those groups. It’s like having an extra person in the group with how powerful and easy to use it is,” he says. “The big win for us lately has been in SMS marketing. Previously, we’d be blasting the whole list, but now it can be really hyper-targeted.”

While Klaviyo’s platform has allowed for a much greater degree of precision (and speed) in accurately distributing Budgy Smuggler’s marketing material, Linforth still manages to fit in a degree of market research that can only be done in person.

“We’ve got an office now in Bordeaux in the South of France, so we’ve been looking at beaches there like Biarritz to set up a shop,” he says. “When we release pairs, we’ve got our ear to the ground about what’s gonna work. And you only get that by hitting the sand.”

This article is produced by Broadsheet in partnership with Klaviyo.