This morning I received an e-mail forward on the “making of ZooZoo”, the vodafone ad campaign, a second time in a week. I could not stop myself but go chasing the zoozoo related news. Here, is my writeup…

They appeared as the sweet animations we would love to watch again and again. Fresh out of the box and in between the IPL matches, Zoozoo, the dwarf egg-heads, successfully walked straight into the hearts of the viewers. In a short span of time, the new brand ambassadors of Vodafone have become the stars with fan following on the World Wide Web.

Interestingly, these characters from Vodafone ad campaign are real people.
Vodafone’s new brand ambassadors came alive through Ad-filmmaker Prakash Varma of Nirvana Films, who directed the commercials for Ogilvy and Mathers (O&M). “The practical aspect of how they would talk, gesticulate and emote was very important. It took me three weeks of pre-production work to understand how it would work,” said Prakash in an interview.

Today, the zoozoos are celebrities in various social networking sites and have a great fan following.

“According to data available here Advertising Age U.S., which tracks the top viral video advertisement (video clip that gains widespread popularity through the process of Internet sharing – e-mail or Instant messaging, blogs and other media sharing websites) campaigns of the world by number of views, has the Vodafone Zoozoo campaign right at the top.

For the week of May 11, the Vodafone Zoozoos top the chart at 1.45 million views, way ahead of the second placed campaign. This is the second week in a row that the Vodafone Zoozoos have topped this chart.

Last week, the Zoozoos entered the chart at number one, the first time in the world any campaign has done that on its debut.

This also marks the first time any ad campaign from India has ever appeared on this chart of the most viewed viral ad campaigns of the world, let alone tops it,” reported Sakaal Times.

That’s not all; it has wooed People for Ethical Treatment for Animals (PETA) too. “The popularity of this ad campaign proves that there are many creative ways to convey a message without using animals. Animals used in films are often treated as little more than props, and many suffer terribly behind the scenes.”

Vodafone has won the first of PETA’s 2009 Glitterbox Awards, for taking advantage of humane alternatives to the use of real animals in their ZooZoo ads.

It has been rightly observed, “If Hutch made Pug the ‘national’ dog, ZooZoos are the new youth icon.”

Do you miss them?