CREATURE-ZooZoo

  CREATORS-Ogilvy & Mather(O&M)

  PROMOTERS-Vodafone           

  SHOT BY-Nirvana Films

  SHOT AT-Cape Town,South Africa

  USED FOR-Promotion Purposes

  MADE OF-White Fabric(hiding women)

  AWARDS-1st PETA 2009 Glitterbox Award

  ATTRACTION-Unanimated Human Figures

“Will they paint me red?”,the good old HUTCH mascot pug might be wondering!!!Yes,the sweet little HUTCH pug “Chika” conveying “wherever you go,our network follows”,is now out of job.

The new VODAFONE ZooZoos are in to rescue the Vodafone ad campaigns “making the most of now”.After forty-four years of the creation of iconic dwarf ANG by Satyajit Ray,which was adapted as the E.T. by Steven Speilberg, Prakash Varma(Ad-filmmaker of Nirvana Films) scratched his head to the full to discover the little,stupid,round headed alien like creatures with disportional white bodies to advertise for the Vodafone Value Added Services like phone backup,cricket alerts,stock alerts,beauty tips,dating tips roaming facilities,downloads,greetings etc.

The dwarf eggheads have posed in a series of thirty ad films aired as each one each day during the matches of IPL season 2 but shot in a mere time of only ten days.Vodafone(VOice DAta FONE),world’s largest mobile telecommunications network company of British origins,is leading the top five commercial brands that have contributed 26 percent of the overall commercial advertising sharing by spending around 3 crore rupees on the ZooZoo ad campaign.

The whole ZooZoo concept and the storylines were coined by Prakash Varma,assisted by his wife Sneha.The ads were shot by Varma under the production of Nirvana Films at Cape Town,employed by O&M on the work,as Rajiv Rao(Executive Creative Director,O&M,South Asia) says.

“The ZooZoos are not animated characters.They are humans in body suits made of foam so that they stay in shape.We used young women of slight & small build,mostly ballet and theatre dancers”,says Rao.But it was a big challenge to create ZooZoos as Prakash Varma adds.

The team had two fabrics to choose from.One was very wrinkly and shiny.So the more practical thicker fabric was used.The fabric was further divided in two parts-the body(stuffed with foam) and the head(attached separately).The head was shown to be bigger than the human head by using a harder material called Perspex.Each facial expression was made of rubber and pasted on actors.The backgrounds were simple in terms of details and neutral tone of grey was used.

Much more was fetched than was expected.The ads have become a rage across the globe.The ZooZoos remained a great hit among the Indian people,especially the youth.All the ads were viewed by a million of people on Youtube.ZooZoo Mania can also be estimated by the fact that there are more than 200 pages on ZooZoos with more than 2 lac fans growing daily.The ZooZoos also have one of the largest fan bases on the social networking circuit including Facebook,Twitter,Orkut.ZooZoosclaim two sites on Facebook,one official and one unofficial,with more than 7,000,000 fans!Some claim them to be climbing over TOM &JERRY and some call them to be the ZooZoos Christ!!

The makers of ZooZoo might return with a fresh lot of ads-if the ratings climb.”But we have not given it any specific thought”,Rao said.

Keep ZooZoo-ising!!!

-Ketan Singla