But this commercial's "shout out" to Hawai'i came from Washington state, where the company's U.S. headquarters is located.

Bob Moore, creative director of Publicis, the advertising agency for T-Mobile, led the team that came up with the ad. He had the scoop on the poi.

"We were trying to illustrate how families were trying to cut down on phone time, so we conceived this idea where a family would essentially go to auctioneer school to learn how to talk fast," he says. The teen girl is outside a concert venue trying to negotiate with her father so she can stay out late to see one of the bands.

"It came down to the matter of 'What bands did we want to put up on the marquee?' and I said, 'Well, I know that T-Mobile is very big in Hawai'i, why don't you put my band's name up there?' I mean, you can't just use Eric Clapton's name."

Turns out Moore's band is called 4 Finger Poi.

These poi boys have played together for 25 years, ever since their college days at the University of Puget Sound, one of those West Coast colleges that attracts students from Hawai'i.

"It's my brother and I, who are a couple of haoles, and then two local guys, one from Maunawili and the other, his family still lives in Mililani," Moore says.

Lead singer of 4 Finger Poi is Andy Palk of Maunawili. Bill Perez, who grew up in Mililani and is now a physician, plays guitar.

The Fingers play covers of old-school contemporary Hawaiian stuff, like Olomana, C&K and Sunday Manoa. The joke about 4 Finger Poi (for the uninitiated, that's poi that is so shamefully watered down you can't scoop it properly — a poor reflection on a host) is played out in the group's self-deprecation.

"We used to play in Honolulu when the really good bands would go to the outer islands to play," Moore says. "We'd be the fill-in band."

These days, 4 Finger Poi plays a couple of gigs a year around Seattle. "We don't charge any money because we don't want to have people expect anything good," Moore says.

The other bands on the marquee are just made up. 4 Finger Poi is the only real group, though how real they are is open to interpretation. "In essence, the group's name in the ad is a shout-out to anyone who ever saw us play. All 30 or 40 people," he says.

The T-Mobile advertising connections to Hawai'i don't stop there. Wayne Harada reported this week that local boy Joseph Morales will appear in national print ads for the company, something T-Mobile Hawai'i's Yvonne Goss was very excited to hear.

"Joseph! I was in a show with Joseph! We did a show for Lisa Matsumoto. Oh, he's so talented! Right on!"

So once again, the old "Wow, small world, no?" plays out, even when that world belongs to an international communications company.