Zoozoo’s the latest Craze in the Ad World. These absolutely adorable Vodafone ad characters for the IPL season are capturing people’s hearts faster than you can say Zoozoo. There are already over 181,150 Zoozoo fans just on Facebook (including me) and adding every minute. They are amongst the most searched videos on YouTube and the most talked, watched, discussed, loved ads in the country.

If you thought Swine flu is the only thing being talked about in India, think again. You’ll find Zoozoo’s everywhere, on TV, in papers, on billboards, on the internet, on YouTube. People are talking about them on radio, in parties and even in meetings! They definitely have taken away the limelight away from IPL* or the cricketers. In a country where cricket is like a religion, the Vodafone company has hit the right cord with these ads releasing around IPL.

Zoozoo Wallpaper Source- Rookie Expert

The Zoozoo craze is not just in India, my sister (who lives in the USA) was asking me yesterday, “What is this whole Zoozoo thing? I’ve seen them on FB (referring to the famous social networking website Facebook). A lot of my friends are a fan, I haven’t gotten a chance to check them out yet!”

Well then sis, this is for you and all the people who haven’t seen or heard about them.

So who/what are these Zoozoo’s?

These odd white characters with an over-sized head and bulgy bellies were especially created for the mobile phone company Vodafone, India and are called the Zoozoo’s. The Zoozoo’s are featured in the company’s various value added services (VAS) ads to inform viewers about the service.

Meet the Zoozoo’s

Zoozoo’s conception, birth and their journey till now:

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Ogilvy & Mather (O&M), the agency that handles ads for Vodafone must have never guessed that their warm and fuzzy creatures will gain such popularity! Shloka, a 16 year old Zoozoo fan says, “They are so cute! They remind me of Casper who was my favourite cartoon.”

Another fan Priya says “I wish Zoozoos come alive..” Well, her dream could come true since the Zoozoo’s are real people in white padded body suits.”The design of the characters is such that one gets fooled into thinking it is animation,” opines Rajiv Rao, the executive creative director of O&M, “which was indeed the very illusion that had to be created. ” he continues. He describes it as live animation. The sets, which are mostly in grey spray paint, were created such that the entire film looks animated. Now when you see the ads, you feel like the Zoozoo’s live in a different miniature world of their own.

Bangalore based Nirvana films shot these ads. Prakash Varma, ad filmmaker, has directed 30 different Zoozoo commercials, one for each day of the IPL season.

The making of Zoozoo’s – CNN ibn clip:

The ads were all shot live at Cape Town, South Africa in a local production house – Platypus. They decided to shoot the film at 20 frames per second to make the Zoozoo’s movements look comical and hurried.

Yasir, yet another fan writes “Amazing concept! No celebrities, no exotic locales, no over the top convoluted idea! Zoozoos have a huge potential to be made into a hot sustainable property and am sure they will be (and should be) replicated across numerous merchandise…they will sell like hot cakes!”

Well, a few websites have already started getting a lot of traffic for Zoozoo screen savers, wallpapers, special sounds and the ads videos. What’s more on the Vodafone site, you’ll find zoozoo quizzes where one can know what kind of Zoozoo they are. Now you can hear them laugh, scream,grumble and fight; to hear the sound clips just click on the words GRUMBLE or FIGHT. Their laugh is so contagious, by the time the laugh sound clip gets over, you’ll catch yourself laughing.  And then there are Zoozoo emoticons, they could give tough competition to the world recognised ‘smiley emoticons’.  You can find them here. You can also tag your friends as different Zoozoo characters.

I wouldn’t be surprised if tomorrow I find Zoozoo print tees, mugs and sports merchandise. I know I would love to own them. Like Yasir said, they could be made into hot sustainable property.

More Zoozoo ads for you:

Of the four ads, the beauty tips one is my favourite! And the Zoozoo laugh from the cricket alerts ad is my mobile phone ringtone! You can download the soundclips from the vodafone website.


Battery warranty ad:

These ads are being aired during the IPL match breaks. Now people are more interested in the ads than the cricket scores!

International roaming ad:

What I really like about these ads, is that they have expressed such basic human behaviour in such a simple manner. They need no language or words to convey what they are saying, their expressions are enough. Maybe that is another reason Zoozoo’s popularity is catching on internationally too.

Poke your friends:

This is one of my favourites. Facebook has a Zoozoo fanclub which has been getting more and more hits each day. You’ll find lots of cool downloads there, Zoozoo fan discussions and more.

Fashion tips:

Disclaimer: All statistics based on zoozoo’s popularity in India since its birth, last month.   

 *IPL – The Indian Premier League is a Twenty20 cricket competition created by the Board of Control for Cricket in India(BCCI). It is the most watched domestic Twenty20 competition in the world. The first season of the IPL was in April last year. This year, there are a total of 59 matches for IPL which is taking place in South Africa. (Source Wikipedia)