They’re back! The eggheaded, pear-shaped Zoozoos, which debuted first in season two of IPL in 2009, will take guard again this IPL as well.

Created by Ogilvy for Vodafone, the Zoozoos with their toothy, fixed smiles were an instant hit with the TV audience. Their idiosyncratic ways and the gibberish they spoke made them as loveable as the Hutch pug, a brand that Vodafone had bought out.

The agency had to overcome the challenge of keeping the Zoozoos, now in their fifth edition, as fresh as ever. This time round, the theme features the Zoozoos taking part in TV shows such as a reality show and a quiz a laKBC . In the latter, a contestant Zoozoo phones a friend for a clue, but runs out of money. “Top up instantly with chhota credit with an SMS” is the Vodafone proposition.

Shot again in South Africa, as the series of ads was in the first season, this time too the Zoozoos are slim actors kitted out in costumes.

Last season, Ogilvy had used some animation as well for the Zoozoos.

Vodafone India Managing Director and CEO Marten Pieters, in an exclusive meeting in the office of The Hindu group here recently, recalled how the Zoozoo story was conceived and the company’s focus on branding. “One wouldn’t have seen as much re-branding happening as in telecom compared to any other industry,” he said, adding “this company went from Max to Orange to Hutch and finally to Vodafone. But, this company has had a strong branding DNA and we were able to build upon those successes (such as the popular Hutch pug ad).” Pieters recalled that for the 2009 season of IPL, it didn’t have a big budget to go. “Normally, we would have done two-three ads and then run them all but we had 29 games to go and realised it would be extremely boring. Normal ads are very expensive to make so we looked at something fun and not expensive and that’s how the Zoozoos were born.”

Ogilvy struck upon the idea of using real people and make them look like animation figures. “We made 25 commercials and that was successful. It took off very quickly,” Pieters said. The ads were shot by Bangalore-based Nirvana Films in Cape Town with a local production house. This time too there will be several Zoozoo ads running right across the seven-week IPL tournament.

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