Swinging at fifty

Will one of the country's oldest brand mascots live to be a hundred?

For one who has spent a lifetime staring down hoardings, the Amul girl wearing what would be a fashion malfunction today - a polka-dotted frock - wields far greater clout than any brand ambassador does in India. Her sharp and stinging take on current events makes her the undisputed showstopper at any brand party. But can she survive the age of outrage?

Rahul daCunha, managing director and creative head, daCunha Communications, is unfazed. He believes her popularity even today is proof that "Amul is going to comment forever." Relevance, he says, has in fact grown with the advent of social media.

Social media has helped the agency keep pace with public opinion far better than it could have done half a decade back. It has helped keep the brand fresh even as the number of ads has increased several times since its early years. "From one creative a month in the initial years it's now five or six creatives a week," he says.

Is this not overkill? To an extent this is inevitable. daCunha says, "India in 2016 is bound to have over-bombardment of information. Politically, socially, there is so much happening now which was not the case even five years ago." But how does he deal with the tirade brigade that takes offence easily and targets brands that court controversy?

"We keep a close watch on when to react. Like for instance, we came out with a topical (ad) immediately after the Pathankot attacks, but in case of Uri, we waited for eight days trying to analyse how the nation is thinking," he explains. That does not mean that the Amul girl will stop sticking her neck out, he adds.

While the ads make an effort to keep up with the times and stay relevant to changing audience, the manner in which the ad is created has not changed much since the time it all started. Cartoonist Jayant Rane painstakingly paints the creatives which are scanned into a computer and the final creative is generated. Copywriter Manish Jhaveri comes up with tongue-in-cheek one-liners. The original was created by Eustace Fernandes, art director of DaCunha Communications in 1966 and the ageless jingle "utterly butterly delicious" coined by Sylvester's wife Nisha daCunha. Today daCunha says that there is an extended team of around ten people. This has been necessary given that the ad now comes up with topical taglines in regional languages too.

daCunha says that over the years, his team has tried to make the mascot and the ads more relevant by taking local sensibilities into account. It also runs separate campaigns for some cities. daCunha says, "Chennai is like a country in itself. We do a separate campaign for Chennai. The people don't speak Hindi and Bollywood is definitely not a craze." For instance, recently a Rs 55 crore wedding in Chennai was the talk of the town. It was not really a rage in the national media but the ad was tweaked to reflect that. "The main task is to gauge if an issue is 'hot' today, whether it will still remain 'hot' after five days," he says. And that keeps the Amul ads sizzling, even at fifty.

EXPERT VIEW

Utterly timeless

In 50 years, the Amul campaign has had over 4,000 pieces of creatives. It is the longest running campaign in India, perhaps the world too. It has covered everything under the sun - from politics to personalities, Bollywood to business, brands to bandhs, cricket to climate and retirements to RIPs. Nothing that was ever in the news, for reasons good or for bad, was missed.

Credit must first go to the client GCMMF (Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation) for not getting bored with the same campaign. And sticking with the same agency, so rare these days. Next, credit must go to the creators, the daCunhas, father-son duo of Sylvester and Rahul who have kept a good idea going month-on-month, year-on-year. What makes the Amul campaign epic? Four important elements: simplicity, consistency, honesty and humour.

On the hoarding, the format is simple. A topical headline with an interesting play of words. The Amul girl interacting with the subject of the ad. The brand name. And the utterly-butterly baseline with an interesting sign-off. Yes, rarely have there been exceptions (like the farewell ad for Amul's father-figure, Dr Verghese Kurien which was dark and stark, with no logo). The look-feel-content-messaging of the ads has remained the same, making it easy for the ad to be read and imbibed in glance-media like outdoor hoardings.

The Amul girl has evolved. She is more expressive, active and interactive. But all else has remained constant. Boringly constant yes, but brilliantly consistent.

It is the honesty of the ads that sets them apart. Recall the 'Maintain Internal Security - Amul' hoarding, a swipe at the infamous MISA Act of the Emergency in the mid-1970s. That called for guts. The easy humour makes them memorable and endearing. 'Lara, kya mara!' when Brian Lara amassed his tons, 'LickHere Baron - Amul High Flyer', a dig on Vijay Mallya - every hoarding draws a chuckle. Easy to understand, appreciate, enjoy and share.

In the process, Amul has become more than just a brand. It has become part of the language and the culture of the people. Such is power of a good idea, executed simply with fun and love. For 50 years. And good to remain utterly butterly delicious for another fifty!

Sandeep Goyal is an advertising veteran. He is chairman of Mogae Media