Xiaomi ambushes OPPO, puns on ‘SwaMi’ and ‘Trump’ in new videos

Smartphone brand Xiaomi’s latest digital ad content series — Mi News, is a string of parodies on popular personalities. Among the latest is Swami Nithyananda, a priest popular among netizens for his unusual theories and explanations about life’s happenings. In the video titled ‘Me in Me is talking to Me in You’, SwaMi can be seen boasting his omnipresent nature. The campaign has been crafted by digital agency Schbang. In the 'SwaMi' video the creative team built on the ‘Me’ in the video with the ‘Mi’ brand name.

Stories on US president, Donald Trump and Republic TV anchor, Arnab Goswami have found a place in the parody series too. The characters are being played by actor and comedian Danish Sait.

In one of the Mi News videos, an Arnab-like anchor announces that the news report will be presented in a ‘low pitch’ and later goes on to yell at another character. The video is about Xiaomi selling over 20 million units of the model Redmi Note 7 Pro. The anchor goes on to ask ‘Manu’ probably Manu Kumar Jain, the global vice-president, Xiaomi and managing director, Xiaomi India, if he is secretly buying and stashing these phones. Next, he targets the ‘OPPOsition’ and asks where they are and mentions that the ‘OPPOsition’ has been ‘decimated’. The visible copy of the dummy news ticker reads — ‘Redmi Note 7 series makes the “OPPOsition” worried’.

The brassy hair and the Trump-ish accent in another video is unmissable. The character goes on to boast the top position of Mi brand across categories such as smartphones, smart TVs and wearable devices. He goes on to announce that others who are claiming to be number 1 are ‘fake’, like Trump calls out the press. The video is titled ‘Xiaomi makes Diwali Great Again’ reminiscent of Trump’s ‘Make America Great Again’ election campaign. This ‘Trump’ then goes on to send ‘Manu’ a smiling selfie.

Apart from the parody, there is something more interesting here. Many of the major Xiaomi campaigns are led on-screen by Manu Kumar Jain himself, and this one too features Jain in the first video. And the rest of the videos maintain an underlying ‘Manu’ connection.