An ‘Advertising Metamorphosis’: A tribute to the Amul ‘Butter Girl’

Abstract:

A ‘mascot’ created to counter the competition and endorse the butter of Amul, undergoes an

amazing transformation from being the “brand ambassador” to playing the role of “The social

Observer” who draws attention of her fans from various age group. This paper try’s to

conceptualize “advertising metamorphosis” where the creators have created an advertising

campaign for a specific reason and that in due course of time take a very different form.

Introduction

Advertising is defined by various authors differently as:

• The non-personal communication of information usually paid for & usually persuasive in

nature, about products (goods & services) or ideas by identified sponsor through various

media. (Arenes 1996)

• Any paid form of non-personal communication about an organization, product, service,

or idea from an identified sponsor. (Blech & Blech 1998)

• The element of the marketing communication mix that is non personal paid for an

identified sponsor, & disseminated through channels of mass communication to promote

the adoption of goods, services, person or ideas. (Bearden, Ingram, & Laforge 1998)

• An informative or persuasive message carried by a non personal medium & paid for by

an identified sponsor whose organization or product is identified in some way. (Zikmund

& D'amico 1999)

Advertising is a form of communication used to persuade an audience (viewers, readers or

listeners) to take some action with respect to products, ideas, or services. Most commonly, the

desired result is to drive consumer behavior with respect to a commercial offering, although

political and ideological advertising is also common.

Advertisers use various types of media and various ‘communicators’ to achieve the intended

communication. The communicators can be the name, term, symbol, signs, designs or character.

The Amul Butter Girl or ‘The Amul Moppet’ as she is popularly called is such ‘communicator’

also known as brand character used by Amul to regularly endorse their Butter.

Amul Butter Girl: History & the Advertising Campaign

Amul Butter Girl popularly called as “The Amul Moppet” (A small endearingly sweet child.)

was conceptualized to counter the competition of its rival, The Polson Butter Girl. Amul butter

was launched in 1945 but was facing a stiff competition from the Polson Butter Girl. ASP

(Advertising, Sales & Promotion) clinched Amul’s account in 1967 & the owner of the agency

Mr Sylvester daChuna & his art director Mr. Eustace Fernandez conceptualized and gave life to

the Amul moppet.

The Polson Butter Girl Amul Butter Girl (Amul Moppet)

ASP decided that they needed a girl who would worm her way into a housewife's heart. “And

who better than a little girl?" Thus the birth of the ‘Amul Moppet’ said Sylvester da Cunha

founder of ASP. Talents like Bharat Dabholkar were hired who created the satire filled ‘tag lines’

for 15 years. Since then she is seen on the hoardings, bus panels & news papers & has been a

keen observer to the various national & international events, be it, political, social, sports,

cultural, etc.

She has been in the memories of various fans for last four decades and Amul Butter topical ads

features in the Guinness book of World Records as one of the longest running advertisement

campaign in the world.

Today Mr. Manish Jhaveri is the creative inspirations behind these ads, while, Mr. Jayant

Rane is the artist.

Reasons for the success of the ads

Various reasons can be attributed towards the success of the Advertising campaign and making it

the longest running advertising campaign in the world.

1. Amul Butter advertisements have a topical flavor. (Topical advertising is taking

advantage of a news story or something current and popular and creating

an advertisement based around it). The topical ads receive extra coverage that they

would not ordinarily receive, as it is something that the people are already talking

about.

2. The use of innovative ‘Hinglish’ taglines which are very evocative and generate

tongue–in-cheek humor. (Full credit goes to Bhart Dabholkar who introduced such

style).

3. The intelligent use of The Utterly Butterly Girl (Amul Moppet) has made the ads

unique in nature. The way the creators used the Butter Girl in their ads was simply

amazing. The Butter Girl could adapt herself to any popular actress, or a politician

wearing a Gandhi cap, a sports man or she was just herself wearing red polka dot

dress with a pony tail.

4. Appearance of the ads: When the Amul Moppet was introduced; the Amul ads

exclusively appeared on the hoardings/billboards. Today she not only appears on

hoardings, but also in news papers, magazines, websites and portals, TV & even on

the pack of the Amul Butter & Milk packets. She also features on the home page of

Amul’s website.

Old Packaging New Packaging

The audiences of these ads are kids, women and the intelligent masses. Kids and women are

attracted towards the animation and the intelligent masses are those who are aware of the local &

global happenings & want to see the same through the eyes of the ‘Amul Moppet’.

Amul Butter Girl: A Mascot or a Cartoon?

Is the Amul Butter Girl a Mascot or a Cartoon Character?

Mascot: Mascot is defined as a term for any person, animal or object thought to bring luck

colloquially (informally) includes anything used to represent a group with a common identity,

such as a school, professional sports teams, society, military unit or brand name.

There are many popular mascots who have been engraved in the minds of the customers.

Mascots like ‘Gattu’ (Asian Paints), Maharaja (Air India), ‘The Devil’ (Onida), Doughboy

(Pillsbury), Ronald (Mc Donald), Fido-dido (7 Up), Zoo Zoo (Vodafone), The Nirma Girl

(Nirma), Parle Baby (Parle G), Appu (Asian Games), Michelin Man, The Marlbro Man, etc can

never be forgotten by the customers.

Appu (Asian Games) ‘The Devil’ (Onida) ‘Gattu’ (Asian Paints)

Doughboy (Pillsbury) Maharaja (Air India) Ronald (Mc Donald) Fido-dido (7 Up)

All the above mascots have successfully endorsed the brands/ products/ organizations and events

that they were designed to endorse. They remained as shadows of their endorsers and tried

attracting audiences.

Role of a Mascot (Cayla, 2013)

• Following is the role of a Mascot

1. Builds up a recognition

2. Attraction and appeal

3. Within the control of company

4. Increased enthusiasm

5. Lasts till the end

6. Delivers the message better

7. Low costs

All the above mentioned mascots play the role for which they were designed very sincerely. But

is The Butter Girl a Mascot?

Cartoon:

A cartoon is defined as

a. A drawing depicting a humorous situation, often accompanied by a caption.

b. A drawing representing current public figures or issues symbolically and often satirically: a

political cartoon.

c. A ridiculously oversimplified or stereotypical representation

So can we call The Butter Girl a Cartoon?

Calling The Butter Girl a mere mascot or a cartoon is demeaning her contribution to the

advertising campaign. She has risen above the shadows of the brand and has developed her own

identity as a social observer. But while doing so she has never let the brand and the product that

she was designed to endorse, out of her sight.

“Advertising Metamorphosis”

The Butter Girl was primaryrily designed to counter the competition from “The Polson Butter

Girl”. But se became so popular that Amul decided to change their packaging to incorporate her.

The butter girl was such a rage that she was not only on the packaging of the butter but she also

started endorsing Amul’s milk & ice creams. Very often we can see the Amul Moppet enticing

the customer at the Amul Parlor to come and have the ice creams.

The Butter Girl changed her role from being a ‘mascot’ of just the butter and also offered her

services to the other products under the Amul umbrella.

She did not stop there. Her popularity was so much that she started playing the role similar to R

K Lakshman’s common man and ‘The Grandma’ in the Giles cartoons of the UK.

Both “The Common Man” and “The Grandma of Giles Cartoons” appeared in the news papers as

social observers who provoked the thoughts of the readers and became very popular. Both have a

topical flavor and the use of tongue-in-cheek humor in them. But they are designed only for their

entertainment quotient and more or less had the role of “The social observer”. Both “The

Common Man” (appears in the “You said it”by R K Laksman) & “The Giles” (by Ronald

"Carl" Giles being published in the British newspaper The Daily Express & Sunday Express

since 1940’s) cartoons appeared in the news papers.

“The Common Man”

Bronze statue depicting Giles's character "Grandma" in

Ipswich England. She stands looking up at the newspaper

office window where Giles used to work

The biggest difference between “The Common Man” & “The Giles Cartoons” is that The Butter

Girl was designed as a “mascot” to endorse a brand of butter. Since then she has undergone a

process where she endorsed other products of the same brand & has undergone a metamorphosis

into a ‘Social Observer’. Metamorphosis is defined as a change into something new, or the

process of an insect or amphibian maturing into adult form.

Today she also appears in various news papers same as “The Common Man”. She has had a

change of what can be called as an “advertising metamorphosis“. “Advertising metamorphosis”

can be defined or explained as a concept where the creators have created an advertising

campaign for a specific reason and that in due course of time it takes a very different form.

The Butter Girl has metamorphosed from being a mere mascot with limited roles or a cartoon

just designed to endorse a product, to that of playing a more important role of that of a “Social

Observer”.

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