What can advertising agencies do when the Mobiles they are engaged to promote become smarter than they themselves are? Well, they can choose to be cleverer, funnier, sillier, more economical, more innovative, more creative, more outrageous, more ridiculous, more clichéd…looks like two agencies have chosen to take all these and many more attributes and combine them into an ‘All of the Above’ option.

I am talking of the oh so hilarious Quba Mobiles Ad and the recently released Allu Arjun featured advertising blockbuster wannabe film for LOT Mobiles.

Quba http://youtu.be/Qk8LMgUi7B4 is obviously a small time shop in the old city owned by someone who has a sense of humor and an advertising savvy that belies his geographical status. The lavish, new ad film produced for LOT Mobiles http://youtu.be/tPI7pvFBAD4 depends solely on the charm of Allu Arvind and a not so clever pun on the phrase…Looking for a Hot New Model?

In all fairness to the lot at LOT Mobiles’ Agency, the script has allowed Arjun to be his usual charming self and offer in a cheeky, suave manner to arrange the perfect ‘match’…and the location allows the star to flex his muscles. But at a time when the audiences have wised up to the fact that celebrities exist in an ad only to give the manufacturers and marketers an ego boost why would anyone want the Allu boy to be a Salesman instead of being a possible customer.

The Quba ad allows the ‘heroine’ to be informative and useful after a futile and endless chase…much to the obvious relief of the owner who barely manages to look better than a passport photograph or a wanted poster. But the LOT ad effectively takes a star and robs him of his sheen. The least they could have done was to feature a female who had a status to match his…Illeana perhaps…the ramp model used looks as if she is surprised that the rough looking Allu can actually speak…and pun in English at that. Hot New Model indeed! How predictive can you get. Even the T9 function on my old Nokia is sure to be better than that.

But it’s a pity…I can’t remember a really good Mobile ad after the old Ericcson ad…One Black Coffee if you please…http://youtu.be/slZQG-Xfg7U…some of the Samsung ads were glitzy but that’s about it…sad, because so much more can be done in a category that’s perhaps emerged as the most active, most volatile, most price sensitive in the market in recent times…

How would I approach a script for a Mobile Phone or a Reseller…I don’t know…it all depends…but I do hope that if and when I get an opportunity, I can rise above the kind of mediocrity that LOT represents and above the stupidity that Quba does.