ORIGIN

Amul girl refers to the advertising mascot used by Amul, an Indian dairy brand. The Amul girl
is a hand-drawn cartoon of a young Indian girl dressed in a polka dotted frock with blue hair and
a half pony tied up.[1] The Amul girl advertising have often been described as one of the best
Indian Advertising concepts because of their humour.

The Amul girl was created as a response to Amul's rival brand Polson's butter-girl

In 1966, Amul decided to give their account to the advertising agency called Advertising and
Sales Promotion (ASP) to work on their ad campaign. The longest-running ad campaign in India
was conceived by noted ad man Sylvester daCunha in 1966 and is now run by his son, Rahul
daCunha. They decided to create something that would grab the attention of housewives and kids
in the country. suggested a mischievous little girl as a mascot with two requirements. It had to be
easy to draw and memorable as most of the advertising would be outdoor media which required
hand painting in those days and the hoardings had to be changed frequently.

It all began when Sylvester daCunha and his art director Eustace Fernandez wanted to create an
advertisement campaign that appealed to mothers and children as Amul’s main target audience.
There was no television in the 60s and advertising was limited to either expensive print—
newspaper and magazines — or outdoor billboards.
With his idea centred on a little girl in polka-dotted red dress, blue hair and the tag line “Utterly
Butterly Delicious”, Sylvester met Dr Kurien, the father of the White Revolution of India. r
Kurien said, ‘Look, if you people think it will work, fine; but I don’t understand how a girl
with polka dots making a statement about odd things is ever going to sell butter, Rahul
recalls.

Yet, he had faith in Sylvester’s vision. Initially the daCunha Communications team was engaged
in advertisements that spoke just about “butter” on a hand-painted outdoor hoarding. In a year,
they realised that they had hit a dead end.

And this marked the beginning of the team’s experiment with “topical hoardings,” which aimed
at giving people food for thought. While making the switch, to using a witty one-liner to connect
current affairs topic to butter, Sylvester requested Dr Kurien to give the creative team “complete
freedom”. This freedom fuelled Amul’s new journey.

“He told the client is the only way this will work is if we have full freedom to create this
campaign. If we try to send you the ad, wait for your approval— it will not work,”
CONTROVERSIES

 In 2001, Amul ran an ad campaign criticizing the Indian Airlines strike, whereupon
Indian Airlines threatened to stop offering Amul butter on their flights unless the ads
were pulled.
 Another ad during Ganesh Chaturthi which said, Ganpati Bappa More Ghya (Ganpati
Bappa take more). The Shiv Sena party said that if the ad wasn't removed, they would
come and destroy Amul's office.
 In July 2011, an ad criticizing Suresh Kalmadi led to trouble in Pune, while an ad poking
fun at Mamata Banerjee in December 2011 led to problems in Kolkata. Subsequently,
another ad with Banerjee was released all over India except in Kolkata in March 2012.[8]
 In 2011, they came up with ‘Maine kyaa khaya' (What did I eat?) for Suresh Kalmadi
during the over the 2010 Commonwealth Games scam, they ran into trouble. “He was
found guilty, he was in jail, his party had abandoned him. But party workers in Pune
actually pulled down the hoarding,” recalls a bewildered da Cunha.
 There have been some laughable protests as well. When they wrote ‘Satyam Sharam
Scandalum!' for Satyam Computer Services Ltd.'s disgraced chairman Ramalinga Raju,
he says, “We got a formal letter from the Satyam Board threatening us with dire
consequences: all their employees would stop eating Amul butter!”.

Their billboard then said, ‘Dalmiya mein kuch kaala hai’ on top and 'Amul: Maska khao,
paisa nahin’ at the bottom. In response, Dalmiya threatened to sue Dr Kurien for Rs 500
crore and sent him a court notice instead of to daCunha Communications.
In March 1966, Amul ran its first topical advertisement capturing the first derby match in
Mumbai