Amul moppet captures India over the years

By Disha Thakker, Exchange4Media, Thursday, May 31, 2012

You must have laughed at Amul moppet’s wisecrack ‘Korbo lorbo Eatbo’ on KKR’s IPL victory. This one may not have made it to ‘Amul’s India’, a book brought out by Amul along with its ad agency DaCunha Communications, but a lot of others chronicling important events in India over a span of 50 years form a part of the forthcoming volume.

DaCunha Communications has been handling the Amul account for five decades. It has brought out iconic wisecracks on billboards and print that have been the hallmark of brand Amul. The book is published by Collins Business, part of HarperCollins publishers, in a joint venture with the India Today Group. The book’s cover says ‘Based on 50 years of Amul Advertising by DaCunha Communications’.

The volume which is to be officially launched on June 11 in Mumbai and June 13 in Delhi is a compilation of write-ups and interviews of various personalities on their perceptions of the brand. It has been brought together by Rahul DaCunha, who now manages DaCunha Communications. He has managed to get on board celebrities such as Amitabh Bachchan, Harsha Bhogale, Sania Mirza, Rahul Dravid, Shobhaa De, Rajdeep Sardesai, Milind Deora, Sunil Gavaskar, Shyam Benegal and Santosh Desai.

Other people who have contributed to the book include industry experts and veterans such as Dr V Kurien, Manish Jhaveri, Alpana Parida, Anil Kapoor, Alyque Padamsee and of course Rahul and Sylvester DaCunha.

“The Amul brand has become iconic due to its advertising campaigns, primarily on hoardings, in the last five decades. Hence, we thought of bringing out this book which not only has compilation of 200+ evergreen topical ads but also commentary on the same from leading celebrities, authors, ad men and like to give the readers a unique perspective – both as a medium and the message,” said RS Sodhi, Chief General Manager, Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (Amul).

Brand design company DY Works has designed ‘Amul’s India’ that traces the journey of the dairy product brand from 1967 when the first hoardings of the brand’s mascot, the chubby moppet, appeared on a few lamp-posts in Mumbai.

“The Amul ads have been ‘live’ and still bring smiles to people’s faces. We wanted to create a ‘living’ collection – which pushed the reader to engage and analyse rather than ‘collect’. The idea was to invite writers, social commentators, ad men and of course, the ‘victims’ of the hoardings themselves – to bring forth their unique viewpoint. Harsha Bhogale has written about cricket and the Amul hoardings, Santosh Desai on a changing India and Amitabh Bacchan on his personal recollection of being an Amul subject,” said Alpana Parida, President, DY Works.

A quote from the book sums it all up: “This book portrays how the endearing moppet and her tongue-in-cheek humour helped a milk producers’ co-operative create a ‘White Revolution’… it is a chronicle of India through the eyes of the Amul Girl.”