Amul’s Mascot: India’s Cheekiest Bystander

While Polson's butter girl had well-kept blonde hair and a neat image, Amul’s girl was the antithesis. Responding to their rival, the dairy giant came out with a blue-haired mascot. With her tongue out and a comical half ponytail, Amul’s mascot has been India’s cheekiest bystander decade after decade.

Amul In Its Early Days

Eustace Fernandes had no idea the blushing, long-lashed mascot he sketched in a dotted frock would grip the country’s television screens for the next five decades. Fernandes, at the time, was the art director of ASP, an ad agency owned by Sylvester da Cunha. However, it was Sylvester’s wife, Nisha da Cunha, who coined the delightful jingle heard all over India. A goofy phrase we know as ‘utterly, butterly, delicious.’

During the 60s, it was typical for advertisements to feature a glamorous person or adopt a corporate aesthetic. So when Amul decided to hand their account to ASP, they suggested having a mischievous little girl as their mascot instead. But there were two requirements for this. Since outdoor hoardings at the time were hand-drawn, the character had to be simple and easy to draw. The second was that she had to be memorable.

When the Amul girl first hit India's hoardings during the late 60s, she did just that. With round cheeks, cropped blue hair, and a matching polka-dotted ribbon, the little girl grabbed every homemaker’s heart. Da Cunha recalls receiving messages across all age groups, even kids, saying how much they loved the campaign.

At the time, Amul didn’t yet have the cutting-edge tone of voice it would later accrue over the years. But since then, Fernandes' hand-drawn mascot has been a witness to India’s happenings decade after decade. Over this time, we’ve seen her take on the cultural zeitgeist, with commentary that is tongue-in-cheek, witty, and at times, even political.

During Indira Gandhi’s Emergency period, she held up a slab of butter along with the text: ‘We have always practised compulsory sterilisation.’ In 2008, when India launched its first unmanned vehicle to the moon, the Amul girl ditched her signature frock for a spacesuit and was seen floating in space with a buttered knife in hand. The text below her cheekily read ‘over the moon.’ When Nirbhaya’s rape and murder seized the nation’s wrath, she came on screen with two other angry women draped in saris, saying ‘Please remember, it's Mother India!’

But these witticisms have also landed Amul in an odd mix of controversies. During the 2010 Commonwealth Games scam, Amul decided to poke at Suresh Kalmadi’s corruption charges with 'Maine kya khaya' since khaya, the Hindi word for 'eat’, doubled as an innuendo for accepting bribes. Bewildered at the response, da Cunha recalls:

"He was found guilty, he was in jail, his party had abandoned him. But party workers in Pune actually pulled down the hoarding."

Despite this, the company has managed to find moments of humour amidst the backlash. When Amul joked about Satyam’s scandal, the dairy company received a formal letter from the Satyam Board threatening serious consequences. But the fallen tech giant’s threat to da Cunha ended up being something of a slapstick chuckle, who was told Satyam’s employees would stop eating Amul butter.

Today, despite companies debranding into modernity, clean lines, and minimalism, Amul has stayed true to its longest-running ad campaign. While these ads still draw a smile from their audience, the road ahead isn’t exactly easy. With the diversification of ad mediums, changing values and demographics, Amul has a difficult challenge ahead. But what the company has in its hands is a clever, chameleon-esque formula.

From Bollywood actors, politicians, and even Daenerys from Game of Thrones, the Amul girl can be drawn into virtually any disguise. News cycles can be tricky, but Amul’s topical take has always been a nod to the brand’s playfulness. Even when a conversation seems out of reach, Amul manages to condense it, sending its young starlet onto India’s screens with a cheeky wink. Yet every message, much like its butter, remains pure and simple.

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