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, popularly known 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 alterego 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 on the queue. Cleaved 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 alteregos 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.
