Amul's Commendable Journey : From 1950s Till Date

Amul, an Indian-cooperative that headquarters in Gujarat has become the largest food brand in India. The extent of its flourishing market can be tracked down with its gross revenue of $5.9 billion that has generated from more than 50 countries of the world.

All thanks to the first year plan of India, headed from 1951 under the socialist influence of the then Prime Minister - Jawaharlal Nehru, that supported the Primary sector thereby encouraging diary productions. Those five years strongly imbibed a legacy in the Indian diary farmers to raise the bovines and now the huge number of five hundred million cattle and buffalo population (which largest as compared to any other country of the world) more or less are contributing their efforts in India's largest food brand of India, AMUL to more than fifty countries of the world.

Lets peek in the times of 1949 which better help us understand the stats where AMUL has set standards in Indian advertising when the birth of this off the hizzle industry AMUL was counted -

It all started when Dr Venghese Kurien joined the district co-operative milk producers’ Union (KDCMPUL) which later came to be known as AMUL, through his dedicated hardwork for the Industry.

Later in 1966, AMUL decided to give their account to the advertising agency called Advertising and Sales Promotion (ASP) to work on their ad campaign. No sooner did Sylvester da Cunha, the then managing director of the agency and Eustace Fernandez, art director decided to break up advertising mascot that the origin of Amul girl ringed the bell across the dairy marvels.

The Mascot, Amul girl, is a cartoon of young girl dressed in polka dotted frock with blue hairs tied in a ribbon - Simple in its own way, because why not during hand painting and hoardings had to be frequently changed and also the advertisement on TV and print media was wildly expensive.

Hence, a simple figure, easy to be a hand made and yet attracting the influence over market formed the basis of the mascot.

Now, the mascot holding the brand name had to be appealing not only in appearance but also how it attracts the attention of population in the market.

In 1966, Eustace- Fernandez's wife coined term ‘Utterly Butterly’ phrase that went superb for the brand, since engaging such an appealing phrase soon became one of the most memorable taglines in India. With one of the India's largest running ad campaign, AMUL, holds the unchanged theme and style for almost fifty years now.

In 1966, Da Cunha released the AMUL girl's first topical ads - titled ‘through bread’ - the ad starred Amul girl as a jockey holding a slice of bread during the horse race season. Next came, ‘Pitter-Patter, pick a ; pack a Amul butter’ and an ad about Kolkata of 1960s…. ‘ bread without Amul? Cholbe na, cholbe na’ (‘Cholbe na’ - being - ‘will not do’ in Bengali)

With quite humorous play by Amul girl, it has indulged various ethnicities and famous people across the country because why not? This was the advertising tactics followed by AMUL, the best traits to be followed by any brand in the market! This is certainly what we call the best traits of any mascot to feel the country taken!!

To celebrate the Amul girl's golden Jubilee anniversary, held on 3rd Jan, 2016 - Da Cunhacommunications released a coffee table book that tells the story of an evolving India through the eyes of Amul girl - titled ‘Amul’. It captures the selection of brand's most popular advertisements as well as article by different celebrities who feature in the hoardings ; for insight, the film stars Deepika Padukone, Shah Rukh, cricketers Sunil Gavaskar and Rahul David, commentator Harsha Bhogle, tennis star Sonia Mirza, veteran filmmaker Shyam Bengal and author Shobhaa De.