Thursday, 23 May 2019

The Amul Girl.....




While the brand Amul was registered and started its work in 1957, the advertising campaign started only in 1966. The DaCunha ad agency of Mumbai was given the responsibility of the brand’s ad campaign by Dr Verghese Kurien, head of Amul and the father of India’s White Revolution – the world’s biggest dairy development programme.
Back then, advertising on television and print media was wildly expensive and so Sylvester DaCunha, the founder-chairman of DaCunha Communications, decided to design an Amul ad campaign for the more affordable outdoor hoardings.

                                       Sylvester da Cunha, left, won the Amul account in 1966. His son Rahul, right, inherited it. 

The Amul girl was created by Eustace Fernandes, the art director of DaCunha Communications in 1966, the same year the simple yet catchy phrase “Utterly Butterly” was coined by Sylvester’s wife, Nisha DaCunha. Initially, the word ‘butterly‘ met with a lot of skepticism, because it was ungrammatical. However, it worked superbly for the brand and soon became one of the most memorable taglines in Indian advertising!
In 1966, DaCunha and Fernandes designed the mascot’s first public appearance on billboards. The cute image of Amul girl kneeling in prayer, with one eye closed and another on a pack of butter with the words, “Give us this day our daily bread with Amul Butter” got an immediate positive response from the public.
However, DaCunha soon realised that there was only so much one could say about food. He decided to pitch the dairy brand’s ad campaign differently, in a way that would instantly connect with the public. In 1966, he released the Amul girl’s first topical ad. Titled “Thoroughbread”, the ad showed the Amul girl as a jockey holding a slice of bread during the horse race season. The feedback was again very positive.
Next came the monsoon ad, “Pitter-patter, pick-a, pack-a Amul butter”, and an ad about the Kolkata hartals of 1960s ,”Bread without Amul —cholbe na, cholbe na”. A clever play on the slogans of the processions, “Cholbe na!” (or “Will not do!”), the ad drew a smile from Bengalis across the country.
While Amul’s topicals ads were very popular, they also posed a challenge – they needed to be released quickly or else, the would lose much of their impact. Realising that the protocol and logistics of approving and releasing an ad took a lot of time, Verghese Kurien gave DaCunha Communications the freedom to run the campaign without waiting to take permission from the company. This very rare gesture reflected Verghes Kurien’s seasoned business acumen and unique way of going about things. This immense creative freedom is still maintained and is the the reason why the Amul girl is never late with her take on the world.





Amul’s’ mascot was seen weeping for the first time ever (since 1964) in an advertisement “Thank You For Giving us Hausla, Pragati & Anand……Dr V Kurien 1921-2012,” the ad read.


No matter what the change—and what the reasons behind it—may be, Amul’s wide-eyed moppet has seen, and survived, it all. 

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