‘Cheeka the pug’ is back following Vodafone

After a near two-year hiatus, Vodafone India is bringing back its adorable pug, Cheeka. This time, he is coming with an entire pack to charm customers (read promote) into using the operator’s 4G services.

Further, the mascot and team — appearing in a new campaign — will also project the service provider’s initiative to improve connectivity by adding a telecom tower every hour.

The campaign, which went live on Wednesday, was conceptualised by Ogilvy & Mather India. It will run on radio, print, digital and out-of-home (OOH) media for the next six weeks, the company said in a statement.

“From the early 2000s, our pug has always been associated with Hutch, and then Vodafone’s reliable network. We hope people will like the evolution of the ‘Network That Follows You’ to the refreshed thought of ‘the data-strong network which always follows you’,” said Siddharth Banerjee, Executive Vice-President (Marketing).

The earlier campaigns had the dog following his little master across the countryside, a football field and back home.

However, this is not the first time the operator has refreshed it icons. Earlier in 2013, Vodafone had bought back its much adorable ZooZoos, advertisement characters played by humans in body suits, to entice first-time data users to take a byte.

The ZooZoos, much like the pug, also arrived in hordes when they were brought back.

“Refreshing icons is always difficult. People still remember our first boy and dog ad and even the tagline. The challenge was to convey the new network proposition, ‘we are getting stronger’, while retaining the simplicity and charm of our most loved asset,” said Kiran Antony, Executive Creative Director, Ogilvy & Mather.

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