Amul ‘utterly butterly’ ads by Sylvester d’Cunha were truly significant: Dr Shashi Tharoor
The Lok Sabha MP was speaking at an event organized by Pepper Creative Awards Trust to honour the ad legend
Lok Sabha MP Dr Shashi Tharoor recently delivered a virtual keynote address at a function organized by Pepper Creative Awards Trust, Cochin, to pay tribute to the advertising legend Sylvester d’Cunha. Shobha Tharoor, the first Amul baby also attended the meeting.
Dr Tharoor said the Amul campaign was the longest-running outdoor advertisement in India. It was not only inspiring and clever, but also remained topical with a lot of pun and humour. Tharoor recalled that Sylvester d’Cunha had rejected as many as 712 photos of babies before finalizing his own sister Shobha Tharoor as the first Amul Baby for the campaign, which was launched in black and white initially. When the agency changed the campaign to colour, his younger sister Smitha Tharoor replaced Shobha.
Shobha Tharoor recalled how she walked up to filmmaker Shyam Benegal who had photographed her for the first Amul campaign and introduced herself as the first Amul Baby. She said, “He was so excited and hugged me and took me to meet his wife.”
The programme conducted by Pepper Trust, organizers of South India’s largest advertising creative awards, was attended by leading media, production houses and advertising agencies in Kerala. K Venugopal, Chairman, G Sreenath, Secretary, R Madhava Menon, Treasurer, and trustees Dr T Vinay Kumar, U S Kutty, P K Natesh, Lakshman Varma, Rajeev Menon, Chitra Prakash, Sandeep Nayar and Anil James were present at the commemorative event.
B K Unnikrishnan, Vice President Asianet News, Vishnu Nagapally, AGM Marketing Mathrubhumi, were among those who delivered commemorative speeches on the occasion.
