Zoo-Zoo

COVER STORY
Zoozoo: Looking Beyond Advertising
-- Vishwas Kumar Gupta,
Assistant Professor - Marketing,
Aravali Institute of Management, Jodhpur.
The author can be reached at
Vishwas01@gmail.com
The Indian advertising industry has often been criticized by the western countries for its dearth of originality and novel ideas. The industry has been assailed several times for allegedly copying ideas and storylines from its western counterparts. But, everything has changed with the arrival of the Zoozoos. Indian ad agencies are, now, being acclaimed for their novel and creative ideas at international platforms. This new brand ambassador of Vodafone, has created a rage in the advertising industry and has been successful in giving the company a makeover and establishing maximum brand presence. During the IPL season, Vodafone created many stories featuring the Zoozoos in order to promote its value-added services. The article narrates the success story written by O&M, with the help of its leading actors, Zoozoos.
I was in the class of Executive MBA program of 40 students. I asked a question to the students to recall an advertisement and its storylines screened on television during IPL-2. To my surprise, the majority of them responded spontaneously `Zoozoos from Vodafone' and these responses were beyond my expectation. In fact, I was expecting the ads, endorsed either by a cricket player or by any other celebrity." Every person nowadays is talking about these funny creatures of Vodafone. TOMA (Top of Mind Awareness) or Recall or Recognition, these ads fulfill all the basic criteria to be an effective advertising campaign. These unique characters have similar human habits of screaming, laughing, humming, singing, gesturing, and even of dying. All the characters are splendid, entertaining and charming. These creatures are named as `Zoozoos'. Zoozoos are the invention of O&M, the leading advertising agency of India, created for Vodafone's latest marketing... [continues]

Read full essay