Ad agency SuperHeroes teamed up with Mark Rubano and Betsy Kenney of imrpov comedy group Upright Citizen Brigade’s, who in turn cruised the streets of New York to ask people to contribute concepts for a new spot promoting the launch of the Asus ZenFone 3.
The resulting ad, unsurprisingly, is all over the place. It actually mixes Rubano and Kenney’s interviews with how they would appear if the full spot were produced. Think a more fleshed-out version (from a production standpoint) of Droga5’s “If We Made It” for Newcastle, with crowdsourced ideas and you’ve sort of got the idea. Think desert islands, clubs, dinosaurs, aliens and an “international car model” and you’re a step closer.
So, does it work? The approach is in service of presenting the Asus ZenFone 3 as “letting you be anything you want,” so there’s at least some rationale (or excuse, depending on your perspective) for it. But the resulting mess is not easy to watch, nor does it really make a convincing case for the Asus ZenFone 3. On the other hand, the spot isn’t completely without charm, namely in the form of a guy suggesting the final line, “Just buy it, don’t be a douche.”
SuperHeroes executive creative director Rogier Vijverberg told Adweek, “absolutely nothing in the storyline was scripted ahead. “And still, probably seven out of 10 started on the beach.”
“It was amazing how diverse the storylines were,” he added. “We had to choose from stories like fresh-baked cupcakes with cartoon birds flying around them, shark bites healed by drinking margaritas and gothic cats turning into sweaty handsome men.”