Zoozoo : invasion of the egg-shaped men

If you have been following the IPL like I have been, you must have witnessed the advent of the egg-shaped little men. They are the new talk of town. And everyone is wondering are they for real or are they animated. I was of the notion that they are animated characters, till I googled them.

What I found out was amazing, these are completely home grown desi concepts which are filmed live with people in costumes. Wow! So Indian ad-makers have done something which the mighty Bollywood can only dream of : they have created a memorable character which is not human. These mad, lovable, laughable characters were the concept of Vodafone's Ad agency Ogilvy India.

The Concept

Last year after the successful 'Happy to Help’ campaign during the first season of the Indian Premier League(IPL), Vodafone came up with a new promotion campaign this year which was solely focused on it Value Added Services (VAS). They with their ad agency decided to create an uncommon characters – a common thread to link the ads in the campaign of around 25 ads. Ogilvy experimented with several characters and finally zeroed in on an ‘egghead’ character that don the colour white (with black dots for eyes and a mouth), have heads resembling eggs, and disproportionately thin bodies.

The idea was to tell the VAS stories in a parallel universe akin to, yet different, from those of us humans. The creatures were to lead simple lives, speak a language of their own (something that sounds like gibberish), move in a certain way, and even emote like human beings, with big frowns or big grins to do the trick. The execution is almost like emoticons.

The Execution

As I already said these aren’t animated characters. They are human beings who body suits. These suits are built in two parts : the body and the head. The body part of the outfit was stuffed with foam in some places, while the head was attached separately. To make it look bigger than a human head, a harder material called Perspex was used, which in turn was stuffed with foam.

The hands and legs were kept thin, which is why women – and occasionally children – were casted to wear the costumes. The thin limbs, contrasted with big bellies and a bulbous head, all add to the illusion that these creatures are ‘smaller’ than humans. Sets were created to suit the size of the Zoozoos. The speed of shooting was altered: the ads were shot in a high-speed format to make Zoozoos look the size that they do.

These ads were shot by Prakash Varma, ad filmmaker, Nirvana Films.

The Effect

Zoozoo has become greatly popular on the net with its facebook account having 72K odd fans. Its twitter page shows around 17 of the 25 proposed ads as have been released. The videos have been a great hit on youtube with some of them reaching the most popular ranks.

I love the ads and though I will never give up my Airtel connection for a Vodaphone (mostly due to logistical reasons) but would definitely suggest someone who wants to change his number to go for a vodafone. They have a lot more to offer as proved by Zoozoo.