Utterly Amul: The naughty turns forty

Utterly Amul: The naughty turns forty
3 Oct, 2007, 0500 hrs IST,Mitul Thakkar, TNN

AHMEDABAD: She has been a traffic-stopper since 1967. Her wit, her sharp sense of humour and her unique style of analysing current affairs have always been a subject of fascination. Towering over at all prominent landmarks of all major Indian cities, she has been attracting more eyeballs than even Bollywood bombshells. And at 40, she continues to be envied by even the best in the industry.

The Amul girl, apart from promoting a $1-billion brand, has been bringing smiles to millions. And this smile has spelt a huge success and changed the livelihood of over 2.5 million Gujarat farmers. The sales figures of Amul butter have jumped from a few lakh rupees in 1966 to over Rs 500 crore now. Apart from rapid growth and trustworthiness, the four-year-old girl has also ensured a virtual monopoly for Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation Ltd (GCMMF) that sells Amul brand of dairy products. It may be mentioned here that GCMMF became a billion-dollar entity in March 2007.


In the last four decades, the girl has dealt with all the contemporary issues; be it politics, sports, society, entertainment, art, weather, infrastructure, science or technology. But here’s something that would shock admen and brand managers. Despite the cut throat competition in FMCG sector, GCMMF is not spending more than Rs 2 crore on Amul butter advertisements annually on the country’s oldest running campaign.What would further surprise them is the fact that the agency, daCunha Communications, which gave a face to brand Amul, doesn’t need to run to the client every time for getting the art work approved. The agency claims that even the top management comes to know about the art work when the advertisement goes on the hoardings.



daCunha Communications has been handling the campaign since its promoter Mr Sylvester daCunha bagged the account in 1966. daCunha not only created the moppet, but also inked the tag line ‘Utterly Butterly Delicious Amul’. In one of its first advertisements in late 1960s, the girl wearing a white apron was called ‘Taste Tube baby’, referring to the developments in medical science. Since then, the Amul girl has never looked back.

The first escalator in Mumbai in 1979 was celebrated with a slogan ‘Automatically Amul’. When the city witnessed a power shortage, the Amul girl said ‘Ta ta power?, Amul, Unlimited Supply’. When the Mumbai police were dealing with underworld don Dawood Ibrahim’s sister Haseena Parkar in cases ranging from extortion to cheating and forgery in May this year, the hoarding simply said ‘Haseena Maan Jayegi?’ In the early ‘90s, when the colas were getting popular, the tongue-in-cheek remark was ‘Eat the Real Thing’. When the world feared a collapse on Y2K, Amul girl interpreted the phenomenon as ‘Yes to Khana’.

However, despite dishing out the smartest copy, the journey has not really been smooth for daCunha. The agency faced a major challenge when the then daCunha copy writer Bharat Dabholkar tried to carry Amul Butter account with him after working on it for 15 years.

“But it was Verghese Kurien who insisted that GCMMF would like to continue with us only. He trusts talent blindly. The campaign has been able to reach this stage solely because of the relationship that the client and agency enjoy,” says Mr Rahul daCunha of daCunha Communications.

Meanwhile, there are also instances when the country’s probably the most appealing moppet did not appear on the hoardings. For instance, the hoardings with black background carried only text ‘Avjo JRD’ when the icon industrialist, JRD Tata passed away. She also changed her get up and appeared in ghaghra-choli to sing, ‘Roti Ke Niche Kya Hai?, Amul, Asalnayak’ when the Bollywood blockbuster Khalnayak’s ‘choli ke pichhe kya hai’ song created ripples in 1993.




The butter girl has turned 40, but she has been able to retain the charm while dealing with contemporary issues. You ask his reaction and GCMMF CGM R S Sodhi shoots back: “What? Don’t tell me! She is just 4.” He adds, “We have a policy to spend only 1% of our pervious year’s turnover this year for advertising. But for butter, we don’t spend even 1% of revenues generated from its sale.” Mr Sodhi promises that the little girl will continue to tickle our funny bone in days to come. GCMMF has no plans to alter its communication strategy for Amul butter as of now