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Audiences at the American Super Bowl, the annual championship of the National Football League, are known to be as eager for the ads aired during the tournament as they are for the games themselves. Blockbuster brands premiere their new campaigns at the games, especially the finals.
In India, cricket is mostly the sport that attracts as much advertiser interest. But amid the advertising galore, the brand which had been able to elicit a Super Bowl-ish sense of anticipation for its ads is Vodafone with its Zoozoos series of ads. Breaking on TV during the cricket juggernaut, the Indian Premier League (IPL) in 2009, it earned coverage and fan-frenzy that are now legendary. The fan-following of the egg-headed, white figures, often seen with a grin, even fuels thriving grey and legitimate markets of merchandise - just as much as the Zoozoos fuel Vodafone's campaigns, which might now pose a challenge.
The Zoozoos have been used as a recurrent theme for its many campaigns, making some in the audience wonder if they have become trite. They came in 2009, 2010, 2011, and after Vodafone tried out a new theme in vain in 2012 and in 2013 as well.
Despite reportedly spending around Rs 60 crore on the Zoozoos' on-air campaign, a Nielsen (the leading global provider of information and insights) study on unaided, spontaneous brand recall of 5,800 respondents from the May 2 till June 3, after the IPL had kicked off, does not feature the brand among the top-five recalled. It is at the sixth position (recalled by 13 per cent of the surveyed) after brands from Mondelez, Parle Agro, GlaxoSmithKline and of course, the title sponsors, PepsiCo.
Vodafone had given the characters a break last year when it went with its telematch-themed 'The Internet is Fun', complete with teasers that failed to generate the recall of the Zoozoos. In 2013, the team was back to reviving them, reinforcing it with mini-Zoozoos called Zumies. Anuradha Aggarwal, senior vice-president (brand communication, insights and online), Vodafone India says, "This year we wanted to talk about Zoozoos in a way that the audience would say, 'I like these Zoozoos more than the earlier ones'."
"It is time to ask the question on whether the Zoozoos make for a fresh idea anymore. There may be a new execution of the same idea but that would mean a marginal change, which we are seeing now. The surprise has to come from the idea and not the execution.
How long will it hold water as an advertising theme?" asks MEC India's managing director, T Gangadhar.
Rajiv Rao, creative director at Ogilvy & Mather and the man behind Vodafone's two popular imageries - the loyal pug and the Zoozoos, says, "We can't repeat a theme again and again without giving it a boost. This time, we introduced new characters, as a result. As long as we can ensure we bring them in when least expected, they should remain engaging."
The Zoozoos had started off under the aegis of Vodafone's then-marketing chief, Harit Nagpal, to highlight the many services. The first two seasons had 70 different spots to make the most of and avoid fatigue during the high-frequency, repeat-viewership of ad spots that the IPL brought on. The figures, depicted by human beings in costumes, rather than animated, always posed the challenge of becoming bigger than Vodafone's advertising message. "We had to think beyond the 'I love Zoozoos' stance," adds Aggarwal.
That is why in the third year of existence, there was the reiteration of the Super Zoozoo which ushered in its 3G series and weeks of tactical free offers to generate faster trials among Vodafone users. The 3G penetration grew by 20 per cent to 7.5 million in two months, according to Aggarwal. The ads which have a call to action through SMS generate 10-20 per cent more brand recall and preference, according to Vodafone.
Monika Divekar, vice-president at Quipper, a qualitative research firm, says Zoozoos remain one of the most-recalled images across audiences at the focus groups she conducts for her research, be they youth, housewives or the office-going population. Rao says, "Even the pug is not a discontinued theme. We will look at a brief to decide on what works."
The team's next big idea after the Zoozoos has remained elusive. It is learnt there is a new campaign involving the Zoozoos on the floor. While these mascots have been Vodafone's Internet evangelists for quite some time, as the operator looks to improve profitability by increasing data usage, the new campaign could decide their continuity.
