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Kevin Kwong

Product: One2Free Music Channel.

Title: Radio Man.

Ad agency: Leo Burnett.

First impression: just like the famously coarse female lead in My Sassy Girl (a Korean movie hit in 2001), the young woman featured in this  ad is prone to violence, especially towards

her boyfriend.

Idea/storyline: a girl  walks into the kitchen to find her boyfriend reading a newspaper. Looking bored, she switches on the radio  to hear an equally bored DJ tell her there is nothing new in the local pop charts. So, she  looks at her goofy boyfriend and decides to turn him on ... like a radio, that is. She tweaks his ear and he springs to life and breaks into song. Not satisfied with this, she  makes an antenna  from his hair  and  'tunes' her human radio. But she is  not able to  find  a suitable station and causes her boyfriend to go haywire with her search. The girl then slaps his face  and he bursts into the latest Leo Koo Kui-kei   hit in the Canto-pop star's voice.

A voiceover  announces  that subscribers can  download pop tunes before they are  released on CD with the One2Free 3G Music Channel. According to Leo Burnett's creative director and managing partner Sandy Chan, the mobile-phone service provider is launching a new medium through which users can download  music before it is available on the mass market. 'Here, the boyfriend is a One2Free subscriber so the girl is able to download new songs  from him,' she says. 'Our client is  working closely with record labels to  obtain the rights to release  selected pop tunes  before they are available on CD.'

What the ad man says: Chan says the  previous campaign for the One2Free Music Channel, featuring Eason Chan Yik-shun,  was effective in raising consumer awareness of the new service. It obviously worked well  because the Eason Chan song featured  became  a hit. But why the Sassy Girl image, which reinforces the stereotype that Hong Kong girls are more dominating than boys in relationships? 'Again, we want a bit of fun in this ad; something that will catch the viewers attention immediately,' Chan says. 'So the boyfriend becomes a human pop chart.'

Does it work? If record labels are working with a mobile phone music channel to promote and publicise their products,  service providers are about to compete  directly with internet-based music download sites. The ad is attention grabbing and lives up to the quirkiness of  previous ads.

But ... the bossy girl character featured in this ad becomes annoying  after a number of viewings.



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