Amul Girl, impish poppet of Amul Butter Brand known for sarcastic comments, has directed its humour at crisis in Gaza. Amul girl, appearing in brand’s latest hoardings, tells Tel Aviv to stop violence with a fine play of words.
The Amul girl was created as a response to Amul’s rival brand Polson’s butter-girl and was executed by Sylvester Da Cunha, the owner of the agency and his art director Eustace Fernandez on hoardings, painted bus panels and posters in Mumbai. The mascot, since then, has been mobilised to comment on many events of national and political importance like internal emergency in India in 1976.
“In 1966, Amul decided to give their account to the advertising agency called Advertising and Sales Promotion (ASP) to work on their ad campaign. Sylvester da Cunha, then the managing director of the agency and Eustace Fernandez, art director decided to create something that would grab the attention of every housewife in the country. Dr Verghese Kurien, then chairman of the Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation Ltd. (GCMMF) 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,” according to Wiki Page on Amul Girl.
In 2011, they came up with ‘Maine kyaa khaya’ (What did I eat?) for Suresh Kalmadi, Indian Olympic supremo accused of corruption, during the Common Wealth 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.