Zoozoos '" the new ad icons
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Shot at Cape Town, South Africa, the campaign used local stage artists and ballet dancers to enact the zoozoos. Since TV audiences were already well versed with animation in ad films, the Ogilvy and Mather (O&M) crew that created the ad decided to go one step further to give audiences something new, resulting in the zoozoo phenomenon. “We wanted to create a character which was inspired by animation or even cartoons of people, like a sort of a caricature. We wanted to keep it simple with few features but universal emotions. Animation and 3D effects would have been simpler, but then that has been done before and the challenge excited us. The challenge of making real people and reality look like imagination,” says Rajiv Rao, executive creative director, O&M, south Asia.
Prakash Varma, director of the ads from Nirvana films that was tasked by O&M to execute the concept adds, “The Zoozoo viral campaign has been the best campaign globally and it has been the most watched campaign till date. This is mainly because of the fact that Zoozoos have a universal approach and it has its fan base across the globe.”
The strategy to release a film a day and have continuity and synergy in the campaign paid off rich dividends. The difficulties to shoot the zoozoo campaign did not impede the execution of the project but actually became entertaining for the crew. “Filming was tricky and difficult as once the headgear was on the artist’s head, the artist could not see anything. Those funny moments were actually entertaining for me in the tricky filming process,” says Varma.
The name Zoozoo was decided as the need was of a name that was unique, fresh and that should sound like something that had never been heard before. Ultimately Rajiv says it was his gut instinct to go with Zoozoo among all the names decided as it was loved by all in the internal creative team at Ogilvy.
Renowned lyricist and executive chairman of McCann Erickson India, Prasoon Joshi, sheds light on the popularity behind the campaign, “Zoozoos have given something interesting to the Indian ad industry which has been seeing the same ideas dished out time and again. The zoozoo concept has immediately connected with the audiences and any creative that can create an emotional connect with an audience has hit the right spot.”
When asked about whether zoozoos will bag any prize at the prestigious Cannes ad festival Prakash Varma replied, “Zoozoos have achieved much more than what they can achieve at the Cannes. People are dressing up like Zoozoos and talking like them at parties. What more can I ask for? “
All right then, with the world taking the Zoozoo language, maybe the Zoozoos just Cannes do it!
