Just when you thought misogyny in advertising couldn’t get any worse, it did. And the latest campaign to prove that comes from none other than QMobile.
In the last few days, if you too like watching your Pakistani television channels, there’s a chance you’ve come across a QMobile ad featuring Mohib Mirza. There’s also a chance that you’ve heard the dialogue, ‘Pehlay mein har majboor shohar ki tarhan bohot darta tha..’Â and sighed on the casual sexism.
Well, the ad gets worse, if you haven’t paid attention. Taking it a notch further, Mohib Mirza goes on to mock the questions his ‘wife’ asks him such as ‘Tumhari cousin ki photo tumhare phone mein kya kar rahi hai?’ and ‘Saba ne raat ko 3 bajay kyun phone kiya?‘
In an attempt to be tongue-in-cheek, the ad makes a case for a man’s right to infidelity and actually shows him how to hide his secret relationships from his wife. Who’s to say who Salma or Saba are or whether or not he’s crushing on his cousin, but Mohib’s expressions confirm it all.  Enter QMobile with its new ‘fingerprint scanner,’ which will help you hide things from your wife, the ad advocates. We’re definitely not talking #couplegoals here. We’re also not talking breakthrough technology because the iPhone has had the fingerprint scanner for eons.
The ad isn’t the first of its kind; in the past Kenwood too has had a foot-in-the-mouth moment in a TVC featuring Nawazuddin Siddiqui, which borderlines conversation on domestic violence.
Will our brands ever learn? We don’t think so.
Check out the ad here and tell us what you think:
