ASUS, A Bunch Of Buttheads At Computex 2012

What’s the first thing you look for in a computer? Speed, OS, price? What about the shape of the rear end of the model standing next to it?

ASUS sent out a tweet about their Transformer AIO, which was being shown by a young woman in a tight dress, which read “The rear looks pretty nice. So does the new Transformer AIO.” Ha ha! Get it? There’s a WOMAN touching the computer, and she HAS A BUTT! And, since the company is selling its product, it makes perfect sense to highlight it by talking about … wait. Why does that make sense?

Could it be that in 2012, ASUS hasn’t figured out that 1.) women have purchasing power and 2.) people don’t embrace blatant sexualization of women to sell random products the way we did back in the 1950s? If there had been a man in tight pants holding the computer and that same tweet went out, how would it read? To my ear, it’s throwing sex into a forum where it doesn’t belong.

There have been defenses of the tweet based on the notion that an attractive model was hired to showcase the computer, so they were playing off of her attractiveness. There is a vast difference between standing next to a product to show it off and being the focus of the sales pitch. At the show, the computer is the center of the conversation. ASUS refocused that conversation with laser-like intensity on a spot it doesn’t belong. Imagine how different the response would have been if the tweet only read “The rear view looks nice,” and ASUS left it up to each individual to decide whether or not to include the model in that assessment.

So, let me spell it out for you, ASUS. Attractive women, like attractive men, make for good salespeople. However, people are not objects or decorations, and just as it would be humiliating to wear skimpy clothes on the sales-floor, it’s humiliating to have an employer send out pictures of one’s body for PR. You missed the humanity of the model, and you missed the opportunity to do your job, which is actually talk about the product.