DIRECTV's 'For The Birds | Squirrel' campaign, created by TBWA\Chiat\Day L.A. in February 2025, extends an animated animal platform to promote satellite-free
ARCHIVEDIRECTV Brings Back Its Animated Birds With a Squirrel Twist
DIRECTV's 'For The Birds | Squirrel' is a 2025 Media and Entertainment campaign created by TBWA\Chiat\Day L.A. and launched in the United States on February 24, 2025, using animated animal characters to promote the brand's satellite-free streaming experience and Gemini home-screen device across television, digital, and out-of-home channels.
The campaign marks the third iteration of DIRECTV's animal-led creative platform, as reported by The Drum. Where earlier executions introduced a pair of street-smart pigeons named Frank and Bobby — voiced by Henry Winkler and Steve Buscemi respectively — this instalment adds a new character: Tammy the Squirrel, voiced by comedian Kristen Schaal. Tammy's arrival on rooftops previously occupied by satellite dishes gives the creative team a fresh dramatic device through which to communicate a product truth: that DIRECTV no longer requires a dish to deliver its full bundle of national and local sports, news, and entertainment.
In the United States, the campaign ran across 30-second and 15-second TV spots, online video, linear television, audio placements, digital display, high-impact digital out-of-home, and social media, according to shots.net. That breadth of media deployment reflects DIRECTV's intent to reach cord-cutters and traditional pay-TV subscribers alike at a moment when the brand is repositioning around its Gemini streaming interface. The Clapboard Score for this campaign is 63 out of 100, indicating competent execution of an established creative platform with incremental rather than transformative creative ambition.
DIRECTV built the 'For The Birds' platform around a specific consumer insight. Executive Creative Director Jason Karley of TBWA\Chiat\Day L.A. acknowledged, as reported by shots.net, that "showing the absence of something is tricky." Communicating that a product no longer requires hardware — a satellite dish — demands a creative solution that makes absence visible and emotionally legible to a mass audience in the United States.
The strategic answer was to centre the narrative on characters who would genuinely mourn that absence. Pigeons and squirrels, urban creatures defined by their relationship with rooftops and ledges, become stand-ins for the consumer confusion DIRECTV is attempting to dissolve. As Karley explained to shots.net, the team asked themselves: "Who spends enough time on roofs and ledges to notice? How about two street-smart, voyeur pigeons who take issue with some great news from DIRECTV." The addition of Tammy the Squirrel in this 2025 instalment introduces a new outsider perspective that refreshes the platform's internal logic without abandoning its established cast.
The competitive context is significant. In the United States, DIRECTV competes directly against streaming-native platforms such as YouTube TV and Hulu + Live TV, both of which have pursued younger cord-cutting audiences aggressively. According to Grand View Research, North America accounted for a substantial share of global pay-TV revenue, situating DIRECTV's pivot toward satellite-free streaming within a mature but actively disrupted market. By leading with character-driven comedy rather than feature lists, TBWA\Chiat\Day L.A. pursues emotional memorability in a category where competitors frequently rely on price-led or content-catalogue messaging.
Randy Krallman directed 'For The Birds | Squirrel' for production company SMUGGLER, with animation handled by Untold Studios, as documented by shots.net and musebyclios.com. The collaboration between a live-action production house and a specialist animation partner is central to the campaign's visual tone: the animal characters inhabit a stylised but grounded world, sharing screen space with live-action environments in a way that reinforces the suburban-rooftop realism the strategic concept demands.
The production roster, as reported by Little Black Book and shots.net, includes Managing Director Sue Yeon Ahn at SMUGGLER, alongside Executive Producers Patrick Milling-Smith and Brian Carmody. Jason Karley served as Executive Creative Director at TBWA\Chiat\Day L.A., overseeing the creative vision across all formats. The campaign delivered both a 30-second hero spot and a 15-second cut-down, disciplines that require the narrative economy to establish character, conflict, and brand resolution within tight time constraints.
Casting amplifies the craft considerably. Kristen Schaal, whose voice work spans animated features and television comedies, brings an immediately recognisable register to Tammy the Squirrel — curious, slightly aggrieved, and comedically precise. Henry Winkler as Frank and Steve Buscemi as Bobby provide returning continuity, their established chemistry giving the 2025 spot a sense of ensemble weight unusual in a television and streaming promo. The Drum's Audrey Kemp, writing on February 24, 2025, described the campaign as an extension of the 'For The Birds' platform that uses character rapport to carry the product message rather than relying on direct demonstration. Production credits for the full integrated campaign, including audio and out-of-home executions, are not comprehensively documented in publicly available sources beyond those noted above.
ARCHIVENo independently verified performance metrics for 'For The Birds | Squirrel' — such as brand lift, view-through rates, or subscriber acquisition figures — are publicly available at the time of writing. What can be assessed is the structural effectiveness of the campaign's design relative to the objectives it was built to serve.
The campaign's multi-format deployment across linear television, online video, digital out-of-home, audio, and social in the United States reflects a media architecture suited to sustained brand storytelling rather than short-burst conversion. According to ispot.tv, the spots began airing on February 24, 2025, giving the campaign a presence in both premium broadcast environments and digital channels simultaneously. That simultaneity matters in the US Media and Entertainment category, where audience fragmentation makes single-channel campaigns increasingly ineffective at driving recall.
Structurally, the campaign's reliance on an established character ensemble — Frank, Bobby, and now Tammy — reduces the cognitive load required to onboard new viewers while rewarding returning audiences with continuity. As reported by musebyclios.com, the 'For The Birds' platform has now run across three distinct iterations, which is a meaningful creative commitment in a category defined by short campaign cycles. The Clapboard Score of 63 out of 100 reflects a campaign that executes its inherited platform competently and extends it with a credible new character, but stops short of redefining the creative territory it occupies. The score acknowledges craft without overstating originality.
'For The Birds | Squirrel' is a 2025 DIRECTV campaign created by TBWA\Chiat\Day L.A. and launched in the United States on February 24, 2025. It is the third iteration of an animated animal platform featuring pigeons Frank and Bobby alongside a new character, Tammy the Squirrel, to promote DIRECTV's satellite-free Gemini streaming device.
Kristen Schaal voices Tammy the Squirrel in the 2025 campaign. Henry Winkler voices Frank and Steve Buscemi voices Bobby, the two pigeons who are returning characters from earlier iterations of DIRECTV's 'For The Birds' platform, as reported by The Drum and shots.net.
TBWA\Chiat\Day L.A. created the campaign, with Jason Karley serving as Executive Creative Director. Director Randy Krallman helmed the spots for production company SMUGGLER, with animation produced by Untold Studios, according to shots.net and musebyclios.com.
The campaign promotes DIRECTV's satellite-free streaming service and its Gemini home-screen device. It communicates that DIRECTV no longer requires a satellite dish, integrating national and local sports, news, and entertainment through a single streaming interface, as documented by streamingbetter.com and The Drum.
DIRECTV's 'For The Birds | Squirrel' receives a Clapboard Score of 63 out of 100. The score reflects competent and crafted execution of an established creative platform, with the addition of Tammy the Squirrel providing incremental creative extension rather than a wholesale reinvention of the campaign's format.
'For The Birds | Squirrel' is the third instalment of an animal-led platform developed by TBWA\Chiat\Day L.A., following an original pigeon campaign and a Deion Sanders iteration, as reported by The Drum. The platform began in 2024 under the 'Get Your TV Together' positioning and evolved to address DIRECTV's satellite-free streaming offer.
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