Bird Creates a Car-less Society and Blissful Escape From Traffic in Animated Video

Bird, the electric scooter company whose two-wheeled vehicles are becoming an increasing presence across American cities like San Jose, Nashville and Austin, decided to go the animation route for its first brand film.

This video, which marks Bird’s first-ever brand film, is meant to imagine a city that’s centered less around cars and more around the people who inhabit it, according to a Bird spokesperson. Its debut coincides with the redesign of Bird’s website, which became sleeker and more streamlined.

“Bird’s first brand film shines a light on our mission: to provide an environmentally-friendly transportation alternative that allows everyone to be free from traffic and pollution,” said Pelun Chen, Bird’s head of design. “The film reimagines what a city could look like if it’s built around people and not cars.”

The 1-minute 41-second long clip, created in partnership with film and animation studio Not to Scale, opens with a man driving and painting lines down the side of a crowded street. At first, his journey is pleasant—that is, until drivers lay on their horns, congestion builds up and exhaust fills the air. At one point, a honk startles him so much that his vehicle swerves into traffic, painting a line where there shouldn’t be one.

As the man gets off the vehicle and paints over the line, exasperated look on his face and coughing from the exhaust fumes, a bell dings. He looks up toward the source of the sound, which is much more pleasant than the honking and transitions into the background chorus, and sees a group of people driving past on Bird scooters.

Comparing the smiling scooter riders with the cars stuck in gridlock, the man balls his fists, his anger growing. Inspired, he hops back onto his vehicle and paints a traffic line through the middle of the intersection, giving the scooters full reign of the road.

The scene pans toward the sky as the tagline forms: “Be free from traffic. Be free from pollution. Be free.”

Bird, which has been lauded as an Uber-like provider of electric scooters, is expanding quickly, currently operating in over 100 cities across the world. According to a spokesperson, Bird’s primary objective is to serve as a replacement for those quick car trips, which Bird dubs as “the last mile.”

The company has met some resistance from local governments along the way. Just a few weeks ago, the company dropped 100 scooters in downtown Palm Springs, only to have the city confiscate them, as the electric scooters were illegal per the city’s municipal code, according to KESQ News Channel 3. They’ve also been denied permits to operate in cities like San Francisco and have been ordered out of cities such as Birmingham, Ala. in the past.

However, if the experience of riding the scooters is as blissful as the brand’s film makes it out to be, it may be difficult to stave off the demand.

Diana Pearl

@dianapearl_

Diana is a staff writer for Adweek.