Asus Has Finally Created the Perfect Digital Device for Birds With Arms

Stop it, you’re quilling me.

Birds with tiny human arms and hands soar in sublimely silly style thanks to SuperHeroes’s first global campaign for the Asus Transformer T100 2-in-1. It’s also the inaugural work from the New York office the Amsterdam-based agency perhaps best known for its prankvertising efforts on behalf of LG.

In “Modern Birds,” a freaky fingered flock demonstrates the features of the Asus laptop/tablet hybrid. The idea is that birds know how to get stuff done #OnTheFly.

Savvy consumers of Internet culture will recognize that birds with arms are nothing new. 

“We’ve always loved the birds with arms meme,” agency ecd Rogier Vijverberg tells AdFreak. “And when looking for a spokesperson for Asus we saw the match. Birds are truly always on the move, plus they would allow us to have a great outside perspective on our modern human race.”

Besides, he says, “it’s a crowded market, so to stand out and get noticed, you need to also stand out in communication.”

Edward, a tufted titmouse with an attitude, stars in a trio of spots. He praises Asus to the skies and taunts users of competing devices: “My T100 has up to 11 hours of battery life to keep me productive. Eleven hours, pecka-face!”

Beyond the spots from directors Andrew Watson and Maarten Boon via production house Minivegas, SuperHeroes has more creative lined up for the campaign.

“There’s a bunch of work for Asus in the pipeline,” Vijverberg says. “It’s fully global, launching in Asia, the Middle East, Europe and the Americas. Apart from (the three films), we have a Facebook game, loads of social content and more memes coming up.”

So, who’d win an all-out war between ad mascots with asinine appendages: Asus’ birds with arms or Cravendale’s cats with thumbs?

CREDITS
Client: Asus
Client contacts: Chinwen Weng, Clio Kuo, David Chen

Agency: SuperHeroes
ECD: Rogier Vijverberg
Copywriters: Elliot Stewart Franzen, Dimitri Hekimian
Art Director: Quentin Deronzier
Designers: Nando Pawirodikromo, Krister Lima
Client Services Director: Django Weisz Blanchetta
Producers: Evelien Schenkkan, Severien Jansen
Strategic/Planning Director: Felipe Camara
Interactive Designer: Krister Lima       
Developers: Chris Noble-Partridge

Production and Postproduction: Minivegas
Directors: Andrew Watson, Maarten Boon
Scriptwriter: Andrew Watson
Executive Producer: Brian Bourke
Producer: Sanne Rosinga
Postproduction Producer: Marloes de Rijke
Editor: Sander van der Aa
Lead Compositor: Sven de Jong
Sound Design: Kaiser Sound



Toshiba Gets Sophomoric in Ads Aimed at College Crowd

Toshiba targets the college-guy demo with sophomoric humor in a trio of Canadian spots from Capital C. All of the action takes place in dorm rooms, and the ads seek to show how the client's computers can improve the school experience.

"Chicken Prank" focuses on a dude who can't peck away with his fingers on a keyboard or touchscreen because he's been wrapped in plastic and tied to his bed. Oh, and the room's filled with clucking chickens, naturally. He wiggles his toe to operate an All-in-One desktop with gesture control. Presumably, he summons assistance. (Dude, why not just scream "help!" at the top of your lungs? Maybe someone's in the room next door. Clearly no Ivy Leaguer.)

"Black Light" touts the ability of Satellite P-series laptops to power and charge USB devices even when the laptop is closed. Two roommates just moving in are horrified when a USB-powered black-light wand reveals unsavory streaks, smears and smudges soiling just about every inch of their walls and ceilings. (I guess the pervious occupants hosted some all-night, um, study sessions.)

The third spot, "Math Notes," showcases the Excite Write tablet's ability to convert handwritten notes and sketches into sharable files. A guy asks his roommate for calculus notes, and looks extremely dismayed, almost repulsed, when he instead receives a drawing of himself reimagined by his roommate as a hunky centaur. 

All three spots are cheeky, just a tad naughty and probably in tune with the teen and young-adult audience. I wonder, though, if some viewers won't find "Math Notes" borderline homophobic, since the punch line falls back on what Glaad has dubbed the "homo-queasy" ad cliché of showing a guy looking disgusted that another man might be attracted to him. "Toshiba would never intentionally set out to offend our customers," Sherry Lyons, vp of corporate and marketing communications at Toshiba of Canada, tells AdFreak. "We do not feel that the 'Math Notes' video is offensive or cliché."