ZooZoo - Is it for real?

You loved them, hated them but you did notice them. I am talking about one of the most talked about character of the recent past - Vodafone's ZooZoo. Today, I decided to start a new blog on the marketing practices of various brands in India (maybe outside as well) and though, the ZooZoos weren't on the agenda of the first post, I happen to stumble upon a few pictures (Courtesy: Priyank) which made me pause and ponder for a moment. Take a look.

http://www.stockxpert.com/browse_image/view/6573451
http://www.stockxpert.com/browse_image/view/6573401
http://www.stockxpert.com/browse_image/view/6573461
http://www.stockxpert.com/browse_image/view/8422672
http://www.stockxpert.com/browse_image/view/6574501
http://www.stockxpert.com/browse_image/view/6573711

The images have been uploaded on Stockxpert which is a place to buy and sell stock images & Footage! The pictures were uploaded by a user Huebi on Nov 12, 2007 (the fourth image above was however, uploaded on Jan 11, 2008).

Now, once you had a look at them, doesn't the uncanny similarity between the character shown and a typical ZooZoo make you ponder as well?

Nevertheless, small dipstick will make you realize that the ZooZoos (read more about them here) have been able to capture the mindshare successfully. Its very likely that extending it to a larger sample will conform to these findings. Moreover, the fan pages and communities on Orkut and Facebook are just helping adding on to this mindshare and may help extend the life span of this mindshare capture.

The whole objective of this campaign, as I see it was to create awareness about the Value Added Services that Vodafone offers. In the process if existing consumers or the new ones decide to go with Vodafone then that is an added bonus. There isn't any Consumer Insight per se associated with this campaign, its just a creative and unique way to put forward your simple objective of creating awareness. Vodafone has been doing similar things in past as well, a quick recall is the 'Happy to Help' campaign with the dog and the kid.

I think the ZooZoo campaign was an example of Great Ads which are Relevant too and have been successful in achieving their objective.