Sola Sobowale Bests Patience Ozokwor Again In New Glo ‘Amebo’ TVCs  

FUNSHO AROGUNDADE 

Nigeria’s grandmasters of data, Globacom, recently rolled out two Television Commercials (TVCs) dubbed “Baby Barble” and “Amebo” to promote its unique products and services.

In the first commercial, two of Nollywood’s most popular stars, Patience Ozokwor, aka Mama Gee, and Sola Sobowale, popular as Toyin Tomato, resumed their comic tango in a hilarious television commercial .

The new commercial is part of a series featuring top entertainers in the unique campaign on data service.

The rivalry between Mama Gee and Toyin Tomato had been established in a previous Glo commercial pitting the two in rib-tickling combat.

In “Baby Barble”, the two stars again entertain viewers with their petty squabbles while shrewdly buttressing the reputation of the Glo 4G service for exceptional speed, quality, reach and efficiency, whether for social media communication or audio/visual transmission. The commercial also portrays the vitality of the network’s service for business and social interactions.

The drama takes place in a supermarket and opens with Toyin Tomato calling Mama Gee “follow-follow”, inferring that her alter ego was stalking her.

Both women are soon involved in a trolley race fortuitously won by Mama Gee when a cleaner inadvertently blocked the path of Toyin Tomato.

But it is at the cashpoint that we vividly see the theme of the commercial and where the drama reaches its climax. Both women arrive to meet another woman ahead of them in the queue. Clutched to the other woman’s bosom and over her shoulder is a baby bawling apparently out of boredom.

The two rivals instinctively reach out to placate the baby, with Mama Gee derisively pushing back the effort of Toyin Tomato with the remark: “She does not want overripe things,” a veiled remark to Toyin Tomato’s light complexion  to which her ready rival retorted: “Dudu by nature” in clear allusion to Mama Gee’s darker skin.

Each determined to prove herself better at placating the tot, Mama Gee swiftly put a call through to her daughter, played by Uche Uwaefuna, to send her a children placatory video.

The video lands pronto on her phone and I-pad and is instantly downloaded, the entire process concluding in a twinkle of an eye. The swiftness of the call, arrival and download, as well as the vividness of the video, is a punchy demonstration of the efficiency of the Glo data network.

But the drama is far from over. Caught napping by the quick thinking and communication skills of her rival, Toyin Tomato snatches the I-pad from Mama Gee and proceeds to lull the baby with the running cartoon. Noticing the sudden silence of her baby, the mother looks across her shoulder and discovers the reason why. As the grateful mother smiles her thanks to Toyin Tomato for her kind gesture, Mama Gee snatches back the I-pad to show who is the owner of the device.

But Toyin Tomato is satisfied that she has stolen the mother’s gratitude from her rival and spreads a smile across her face to celebrate her victory in the “who can lull the baby” challenge.

Patience Ozokwor and Sola Sobowale have been regularly cast as alter egos and squabbling rivals in films, skits and TVCs where they antagonize each other and entertain with storylines that resonate with the target audience.

The “Baby Barble” commercial is a sequel to an earlier one featuring the two Nollywood stars and Juju music legend, King Sunny Ade.

Globacom has become masters at communicating its brand promise through television commercials. This entails using its iconic brand ambassadors to dramatize information about the efficiency and reliability of its services. Each television commercial alerts Nigerians to the rich offerings by Globacom.

This choice of platform and its effective deployment are not surprising from a firm that is as passionate about promoting arts and entertainment in Nigeria as it is about leading the Nigerian telecoms industry to the future.

Similarly, the second television commercial takes Nigerians back in time to those halcyon years when every household with a television set in the country tuned in to watch their most popular soap opera, Village Headmaster.

Produced to promote “Glo Amebo”, a voice offer that gifts subscribers five times the value of their recharge, the new commercial has “resurrected” the character of veteran actress, Chief Ibidun Allison, popularly called “Amebo” for her role in the classic television soap opera.

It is from that memorable past that the new Glo TVC has recovered Chief Allison, the great Thespian whose unforgettable portrayal of a busybody woman has taken her name in the series, “Amebo,” into the lexicon of every Nigerian language.

The Urhobo word “avwebo” means the favourite wife in a polygamous home and the talebearer in the family who keeps the husband abreast of happenings and gossips. Amebo in Village Headmaster excelled in that role and made the character unforgettable for the viewers.

It is that character sketch that the inimitable Ibidun Allison perfectly re-enacts in the Glo TVC.

Chief Allison plays the talkative beads seller. Her daughter was played by Yvonne Jegede. The endless phone conversation begins in the morning and goes uninterrupted till evening when Amebo suddenly looks up and realizes darkness has fallen on the market and other traders have closed for the day!

When a customer, acted by musician Ego Ogbaro accompanied by her husband in the TVC acted by Wale Akorede popularly called “Okunu”, complains about the endless call, Amebo touchily retorts: “Na you be Glo wey dey dash me credit anyhow?”

In that punchline, she makes the viewer realise that a subscriber to the Amebo tariff plan on the Glo network is guaranteed an almost endless talk time with little recharge.

As the main character in the commercial, Amebo fills the screen and engrosses the viewers in her chit-chat until the very end when she suddenly realizes that she has spent such a long time on the phone. But not to worry – she is on Glo Amebo! She can talk for as long as it takes without blinking an eyelid.

The television commercial underscores the vast volume of call time available to customers to call, chat and network with family and friends on the Glo network.

As for Chief Ibidun Allison, the evergreen Amebo remains just as we always knew her in the unforgettable Village Headmaster.

“Glo Amebo” is available on all recharges while customers can recharge with *555*PIN# to get five times the value of their chosen recharge.