The Zoozoos

„There was a study that revealed that of the 20-odd brands associated with the IPL, viewers recalled only one campaign—the ZooZoos"

Brands all over the world are trying to develop new promotional features to catch the attention of their customers and to arouse interest within their target audience. Stimulating customers’ interests is the main goal of any commercial and any successful brand. Many Indian commercials are using celebrities to advertise their brands and products, because people in India love to live dreams as the big success of Bollywood movies exhibit. In celebrity commercials the promotional features and images of the product are matched with the celebrity image, trying to persuade a consumer to choose a special brand. Consumers normally identify themselves with the celebrity and in consequence with the product promoted. Marketers benefit from these desires by using famous people as a personification of these dreams. Celebrity endorsement is highly accepted and favored by Indian consumers, because the brand is not only promoting its products but also its image. The more famous the celebrity the more prosperous and well respected the company.

But Vodafone, being a young and innovative company wanted to get away from these stereotyped commercials, using popular people to avert their product. Two years after joining Hutch, and having established a stable and trustworthy brand, Vodafone wanted to reinforce its image and launch a campaign that would be different from everything they have produced before, something called the Zoozoos. The campaign, launched in 2009, focused on the different value added services (VAS)* offered by the company. 

During the Indian Premier League (IPL) Season 2., the first commercial with the new Zoozoo characters were shown on television and became a massive success. The commercials were created by the agency Ogilvy & Mather, shot by Prakash Varma and produced by Nirvana Films, filmed in South Africa. Instead of showing repeatedly the same commercial during the Premier League, Vodafone decided to launch a new spot every day. In a record time of 10 days they produced about thirty different commercials for VAS, telling a different story in each of them. The spots are usually ending with the Vodafone Slogan” Make the most of now”, strengthening the recognition value and are kept quite simple. White creatures in a grey surrounding, the only other colors are normally just objects in the background or flowers, as shown in the picture below. They are made to look like animations but they are real humans, acting in a rubber-outfit with white fabric. The facial expressions were made of rubber and pasted onto the actors Zoozoo-outfits. “The design of the characters is such that one gets fooled into thinking it is animation” (Rajiv Rao, executive creative director, O&M)





The Zozoos are alien like white creatures, with egg-shaped heads, big bellies and squeaky voices. They resemble toy characters rather than humans, although their behavior is human-like. Due to their low cost costumes and sets and engaging theatre actors rather than celebrities, the costs for these commercials were held at a minimum. Compared to many other campaigns, the Zoozoo commercials have been the cheapest and most favored during the IPL. But what made these commercials that popular was mainly the fact that they have been shown during the most important sports event (the IPL) in India. Estimated 48 million viewers watched the IPL in 2009


Right from the start the Zoozoos were a major hit in India. “During the IPL the Zoozoo commercials occupied eighty five percent of most visible brand on screen and turned out to be the most watched brand during breaks much ahead of other brands…”People loved these alien-like creatures and were anxious to see which other spot would be next. Vodafone created 30 different spots, as mentioned before, with 30 different independent stories. These semi-human characters, living in an earthlike place have caught the attention of many viewers. Their cute, childish, innocent and humanlike character was something the people loved, because they resembled the child archetype. Thus, they convey a sense of familiarity, innocence and humor and the lightheartedness that some people tend to loose when growing up. But one of the most important facts, why the Zoozoos gained popularity has to do with their look and their way of talking. When trying to understand the major success of these commercials one has to take a closer look on the Indian culture and society. Having noticed that the Zoozoo are not speaking any real existing language, but an artificial and invented language it is obvious that the creators tried to keep these commercials as simple as possible. By using an imaginary language they were able to reach an even broader audience, than they would have with using one of the official languages spoken in India. Due to the fact that many different languages and dialects are spoken in this country they have overcome the obstacle to convey their message in the right way. Although there are only two official languages (Hindi and English), there are over 100 different language families existing throughout the country. As the literacy rate variate between the different states, many people living in rural areas do not know the official languages. By using a non-existing language the producers created a possibility for the illiterate people to watch the commercials as well without having trouble understanding the message or the story behind the spot. Secondly, religion states another major issue in India. As there are four major religions existing, people are taking their religion very seriously. Living in a caste system predetermines the way of life for every person living in India. However the Zoozoos do not produce bias of any kind. As they are white aliens, with a childish character they are innocent and do not resemble any stereotyped caste in any way. Thus they are representing the common man as a cartoon or animated character. The stories they are telling are funny and always related to the service they are advertising.



However, by inventing the Zoozoos, Vodafone not only created successful commercials but also a massive viral marketing strategy with it. The marketers used the internet and the social media to promote and popularize the characters. They raised curiosity about the characters and stories, by eventually telling the viewers that these characters are actually played by real humans and were not animated. In the course of the IPL and afterwards, Vodafone launched a Zoozoo Facebook page, attracting a lot of members within a very short period of time. With the increasing interest and the public demand, Vodafone started to sell other Zoozoo merchandise products like T-shirts, mugs and key chains. “Everyone loves the commercials. “It’s almost like public demand, where people wanted some part of Zoozoos which they could own” (Rajiv Rao, creative director, O&M) Unintentionally they have created a “cult” and a booming business with Zoozoos, reinforcing customer loyalty to their products and brand.

In spite of the success there are other factors to consider. As the commercials are aiming at the urban consumers, they might be difficult to understand for the rural population due to their level of education. The spots are not put into any context and speak for their own. The whole story is told by mere body language, gestures and facial expressions. The loose connection to the culture sets another obstacle for the rural population to understand the message they want to illustrate and communicate. However, as Vodafone is expanding its services in the more rural regions, they managed to combine a successful commercial with appealing offers. Introducing different packages and different services according to the target audience was another promotional advantage of the Zoozoos. As diverse as the population of India, as diverse the offers of Vodafone.

Including economic and cultural factors into their promotions enabled Vodafone to launch this successful campaign.