Not too long ago, all of us were talking about the Zoozoos - this blog and yours truly included, though not in the same way most others did.
Where are the Zoozoos now? Whatever happened to them?
The pug is back. Does that mean the Zoozoos are gone….forever? All this raises more questions than I can find answers.
>> The Zoozoos, I am told in an interview by someone at Vodafone, were brought in place of the pug coz they wanted to create something spectacular since the pug reminded people of Hutch and not as much Vodafone. Now, what caused this change? Why bring the pug back? To remind people of Hutch again?
>> First it was ‘Orange’ to ‘Pink’; then it was Hutch to Vodafone; later it was ‘Pug’ to ‘Zoozoos’; and now back to the ‘Pug’ again. So should we expect another change – ‘Vodafone’ back to ‘Hutch’?
>> Isn’t brand and brand communication all about consistency? If you keep creating colours and characters only to drop them the next quarter, are you not being consistent…….in being inconsistent?
>> If the Zoozoos created huge hype, hoopla and hysteria, why drop them? Does that mean Vodafone now realizes all the noise created was created for the Zoozoos and not as much for Vodafone? Did you notice, all of us were saying ‘Did you see the Zoozoo ad’ and not ‘Did you see the new Vodafone ad’ which is how it should have been in the first place?
Isn’t there a lesson for marketers in all this? There is; and it’s easy to figure out what it is. So easy that it doesn’t bear mention here.
17 comments:
the whole idea of communicatng vas has fallen flat frm vodafone. Why not make de ads simple & terse? infact majority of the mobile users dunno know how 2 use vas. Thats why i feel educating the customers is more important ritly done by aircel,(dhoni ad) which even says which button to press to use its vas related features.
Sir,
I completely accept that zoo zoos did not create a publicity for vodafone, rather it created one for itself.
1. But then is there any mistake in the ad? I Think that all the ads carried messages at the end.
2. Or Is it that when people tend to be carried away from the message by such innovative ads? If so, what can be done?
3. Should usage of such special characters in ads be stopped to prevent such failures?
Please give ur comments...
I think ads always have some purpose, either to improve sales or to create awareness. But i never felt zoozoos served this purpose, they didn't do any good to Vodafone. Many people noticed zoozoos but many people never knew that this ad was for Vodafone.
One thing i liked was vodafone understood the mistake and took the advertisement out within three months.
Ads might be creative, award winning, critically acclaimed but it should serve the purpose properly; else for a company the ads are always a failure.
I think ads always have some purpose, either to improve sales or to create awareness. But i never felt zoozoos served this purpose, they didn't do any good to Vodafone. Many people noticed zoozoos but many people never knew that this ad was for Vodafone.
One thing i liked was vodafone understood the mistake and took the advertisement out within three months.
Ads might be creative, award winning, critically acclaimed but it should serve the purpose properly; else for a company the ads are always a failure.
Its true that these zoozoo ads were not in line with the overall strategy of that of Vodafone's...
wen the characters overpower the advertised brand and overshoot the intended purpose it is to use a character that is consistent with the brand.. The pug is termed as "Hutch Dog" by most people and it was a mistake to terminate it.. Accepted that Zoozoos created noise, the ad recall was phenomenal but it wasnt the same with Brand recall.. Hope Hutch or Vodafone, as u term it learns from this.. Nice post sir.. :). But a question, bringing back the Pug wud literally result in Hutch than Vodafone, wat else do u think that Vodafone can do, in sense, leverage the Pug and also brand it Vodafone than Hutch..
Dear sir,
The post are good. But now a days your post are seems to be boring...
We need your innovative blogs....we need you as the old innovative Satheesh....our friend are your blog fans...all we feel little bit boring.....we are expecting some thing new sir.......
Hi Anonymous, I have been writing the same way I have all along been writing. If it is ceasing to be innovative now, it only means it never was innovative at any time before. Kindly suggest what else I should do, and if I can, I would try and make a honest attempt at that. Thanx anyway for your feedback.
Prasanna, For right or wrong, Pug has left an indelible mark in the consumer's mind. Having let the genie out of the bottle, the least Vodafone should do is to try and ride it. In other words, continue with the Pug. You see, the Pug represented 'Network that follows you everywhere, like your dog does'. That is a powerful offering for a telecommunication brand. Why leave it? They should try and hammer that message, only this time transfer the title on to Vodafone. Not as easy as it sounds, but eminently achievable. Definitely better, you would agree, than creating a thousand characters and changing them every quarter! Let me know your thoughts. I would like to know what you think.
Hmm.. U said wat was there in my mind, thou I still believe it is a very difficult task for Vodafone to achieve the recall of the pug with the Brand.. Vodafone has a tough task of diluting the association with the ZooZoos and connecting with the Pug.. I suppose that Vodafone shud come out with a gud story to achieve the above backed with loads of money...
Sir, i'm seeing this in a different angle... If you roughly see the Ad-communication strategy of hutch/vodafone over the period, when it was during the entry stage (as Hutch) apart from "Hi" concept, most of the time it spoke about the "Our network follows wherever you Go" through wonderful creatives using the pug (i think that would first time most of our people especially me came to know about such dog breed available)..anyways..that created a big impact in the market just to take the brand in TOM...and pug did it and it is captured the position but not the message..after when orange changed to pink then Hutch to Vodafone.. the brand never spoke about technology uniqueness) which is the network which follows but it is being delivered as a "friend which follows and stays always" probably ZooZoos had failed to take this message..and it is very evident... instead it quarreled,romanced, mocked, shouted and feared based on the message (on various VAS offers)..it actually derailed the vodafone's brand identity to certain extent, the communication started losing it's consistency and it could have failed to attract the audience who loved pug... as u rightly said..we saw zoozoo..but what message it conveyed is a big question mark.. we loved and admired and waited for those commercials, because we are seeing it as new fun creature and ad message has got totally vanished in that excitement that we had... if ROI is poor then it should be scratched that is what could have happened with zoozoos...Correct me if i'm wrong sir...
Log, I agree with you. The pug, for right or wrong, symbolized 'coverage' or 'network that follows you everywhere'. An eminent identity that could have been hammered. Even when the name had got changed from Hutch to Vodafone. Zoozoos should not have been created in the first place.
I would like to make few points of why Vodafone changed from Puppy's Ad to Zoozos and why again revert back.
1. Vodafone is world known for it's VAS, and the Hutch's previous Puppy Ad was focussed on emotional attachment (Network Follows), which probably was not serving the Vodafone marketing strategy.
2. Zoozoos were created as a cute character which will have a high recall value.
3. But there were more than 26 different Ad with different messages abt VAS at the end of each Ad, and it became very difficult for a average person to keep remeber any of these messages. Ultimately what they could keep in mind was Zoozoos.. so the purpose of Ad.. creating awareness of VAS remained unsolved.
4. I think in Urban areas these Zoozoos Ad might have made some impact, but this segment is already getting saturated. and in Rural areas, where mobile is still just a device to make/recieve calls, these people didn't understood the message of the Ad...though Zoozoos became popular but again purpose was unsolved.
To this note,I feel that they have to come up with such ads.. bcos there were striving hard right from the inception of hutchison-essar(hutch) to now vodafone to compete against the long standing mega brands like Airtel and Bsnl and also others.so they tend to keep changing their ads as a way to present their brand ...but not too much(obviously "two"is "much"; a pug and a zoo.!) ..maybe they are trying to position their image deep in to the nerve cells of the prospect!Also its true and i accept the fact that vodafone stands tall only in the urban ,but they have to find a way to campaign in a more social manner to cut throat in to rural market!
I believe that if vod., were able to come out the creation of their unique hood(pug,zozo) rather rope in some real life images like what other brand does(khan,roshan,padukone and wat not) they could reach out in the rural market too.And i believe they are ahead of reliance and aircel in the mark. share! in a short period.the real question y can't they >>?
This whole episode is completely my own perception...relating to certain facts and forgive me if there is any misconception to ur view....pls comment against it sir.
i hav contradictory views to wt pd said. As per the figures ,the addition of new vodafone customers was on par with Airtel when the zoozoo commercial rolled out during IPL. in the months of april, may, june the new subscribers for both Airtel and vodafone were almost equal. it was in the month of march that vodafone for the first time ever over took airtel in the number of new subscribers with 2.85million new customers. And moreover wt i feel is that people were able to recognize that ZooZoo is for vodafone but the message they tried to convey didnt reach the market properly.
Hi Karthik, if Zoozoos did work for Vodafone, then why did they revert back go the Pug? My point is why is there no consistency in their advertising. And if you say people recognize Zoozoos in the context of Vodafone but are not able to recall the message....well, that is precisely what I had written about a few posts back.
Thats all fine sir. But the zoo ad was an effort to reinforce the brand awareness and the message was just used as a tool. I think conveying the message wasnt their motive behind zoo zoos. zoo zoo was just a " cosmetic strat to create awareness"
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