Amul's India (Based on 50 Years of Amul by daCunha Communications)

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The Amul Campaign tells the stories of India a hoarding at a time. The hoardings are markers of the 'popular' history of India and have been followed by fans for decades. Timeless and ageless. this long running campaign has captivated Indians of all ages.

The key character in this saga is the lovable little girl in polka who helped Amul Butter win over an entire nation. This book celebrates her journey through the eyes of prominent writers, public figures and the subjects of the hording themselves. It contains a series of vignetters, creating a patchwork quilt of essays snippets and Selections of classic hoarding. It offers us an inside peek into back story of the creation of the ads.

Amul’s India is a celebration that would be of enormous interest to an observer of contemporary India, be it a brand manager, a management student or a fan of Amul. Or just somebody who wants a rollicking good time.

It gives me great pleasure to introduce the second edition of this book as the record-breaking print-run of 1.2 lakh copies of the first edition has run out. The accolades for the previous edition have been overwhelming and the clamour for 'more' of the iconic Amul girl's antics has continued unabated. The Amul girl -'and the humorous hoardings she adorns - has been an important ingredient in building the Amul brand. This book commemorates fifty years of her existence - and yet she seems as young, fresh and relevant as she was when it all began.

Amul emerged as an offshoot of the Indian freedom movement. to give poor farmers the best returns for their milk by eliminating middlemen. Since then it has grown into a national brand that is respected and trusted in every corner of the country. The purest milk products and interesting new formats and formulations as well as the concept 'Taste of India', the Amul moppet, and the consistent advertising strategy have all contributed to the Amul success story.

A daily and essential food product has to provide the consumer with the confidence that it is not only tasty and nutritious, but that it is produced to the highest hygienic standards, and provided at a fair and acceptable price. This is the assurance that the Amul brand promises, and for almost seventy years now, we have striven continuously to honour this commitment. We have renewed this by meeting, and often surpassing, the customer's expectations of quality, value for money, choice, availability and service.

This has been possible with the co-operation and combined efforts of a producer-owned and -controlled integrated system of production, procurement, processing and marketing.

This book portrays how an endearing moppet and her tongue-in-cheek humour helped a milk producers' co-operative create a 'white revolution'. It traces how Amul evolved as a brand by commenting on the popular political and social culture of India over the past five decades. Its topical, humorous and memorable hoardings continue to delight generations of Indians.

DaCunha Communications has been the longest-ever partner of the Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF) and is the creator of its Amul hoardings.

DY Works has partnered Amul over the last decade through brand creation and rejuvenation, and has conceived, designed and created this book.

The book goes beyond being an ordinary anthology to being a chronicle of India through the eyes of the Amul girl. The multiple contributions by prominent writers and thinkers add to its richness.

Amul will continue to participate in the development of the country by using all the profits from the sale of this book to honour deserving Class X and XII students in India under the Amul Vidyashree and Amul Vidyabhushan Award schemes, just as it had done with the sale of the first edition.

In this new edition, we have brought out some more classics from the archives. We also have features on new topics - the rise of Narendra Modi. the youth becoming more central in the national discourse, concerns over women's safety - telling the story of an evolving India as seen through the Amul moppet's eyes.

The Amul girl is a chronicler of our times. Thus, by definition, she is perennially youthful as she keeps moving with the times. Since the first publication of this book in 2012, many new events have impacted us - the coming into power of Narendra Modi, the FIFA fever that gripped the nation, the rise of a younger brigade of stars, newer scams and controversies - and the Amul girl has kept pace with all that and more. In this scenario, the second edition of this book had to be more than a mere reprint. It had to be updated with new material. Additionally, in the first edition, only about 10 per cent of the topicals could be accommodated in the book. In this new edition, we have brought out some more classics from the archives. We also have features on new topics, telling the story of an evolving India as seen from the Amul moppet's eyes.

The Amul campaign tells the stories of India, a hoarding at a time. The hoardings are markers to the 'popular' history of India and have been followed by fans for decades. Seemingly ageless, this long-running campaign has captivated fans across all ages. I have been one such, for almost four decades now.

One cold afternoon in early 2010, I sat in the Amul boardroom with R.S. Sodhi, Kishorsingh Jhala and Jayen Mehta - the senior management team at Amul - and was reminiscing about the hoardings. I remembered the lines of some hoardings ('Pao lo roz hi' - a pun on Paolo Rossi during the '82 FIFA World cup and 'Tab bhi phekta tha, ab bhi phekta hai' - for Shoaib Akhtar, have been my all-time favourites), and felt that the most-loved brand in India had to make these hoardings accessible to their legions of, fans.

These funny vignettes, created week after week by daCunha Associates, have captured the spirit of India with beguiling charm and no malevolence for almost fifty years. We needed to celebrate these hoardings. which have been the most visible face of the brand for so many years, by making a book that would pay a tribute to the 'Toast of a Nation.