Report on Amul Advertising Case Study

Introduction

Amul, is an Indian dairy cooperative society, based at Anand in the Indian state of Gujarat. Today,
it is jointly owned by 36 lakh (3.6 million) milk producers in Gujarat, and the apex body of 13
District Milk Unions, spread across 13,000 villages of Gujarat. Amul spurred India's White
Revolution, which made the country the world's largest producer of milk and milk products. The
brand name Amul means “AMULYA”. This word derived from the Sanskrit word “AMULYA” which
means “PRICELESS”. A quality control expert in Anand had suggested the brand name “AMUL”.
Amul products have been in use in millions of homes since 1946. Amul Butter, Amul Milk Powder,
Amul Ghee, Amulspray, Amul Cheese, Amul Chocolates, Amul Shrikhand, Amul Ice cream,
Nutramul, Amul Milk and Amulya have made Amul a leading food brand in India. (The total sale
is Rs. 6 billion in 2005). Amul is a symbol of many things like of the high-quality products sold at
reasonable prices, of the genesis of a vast co-operative network, of the triumph of indigenous
technology, of the marketing savvy of a farmers' organization. And have a proven model for dairy
development (Generally known as “ANAND PATTERN”)

History
In the year 1946 the first milk union was established. This union was started with 250 liters of
milk per day. In the year 1955 AMUL was established. In the year 1946 the union was known as
KAIRA DISTRICT CO-OPERATIVE MILK PRODUCERS’ UNION. This union selected the brand name
AMUL in 1955. In the early 40’s, the main sources of earning for the farmers of Kaira district was
farming and selling of milk. That time there was high demand for milk in Bombay. The main
supplier of the milk was Polson dairy limited, which was a privately owned company and held
monopoly over the supply of milk at Bombay from the Kaira district. This system leads to
exploitation of poor and illiterates’ farmers by the private traders. The traders used to beside the
prices of milk and the farmers were forced to accept it without uttering a single word. However,
when the exploitation became intolerable, the farmers were frustrated. They collectively
appealed to Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, who was a leading activist in the freedom movement.
Sardar Patel advised the farmers to sell the milk on their own by establishing a co-operative
union, Instead of supplying milk to private traders. Sardar Patel sent the farmers to Shri Morarji
Desai in order to gain his co-operation and help. Shri Desai held a meeting at Samarkha village
near Anand, on 4th January 1946. He advised the farmers to form a society for collection of the
milk. These village societies would collect the milk themselves and would decide the prices at
which they can sell the milk. The district union was also form to collect the milk from such village
co-operative societies and to sell them. It was also resolved that the Government should be asked
to buy milk from the union. However, the govt. did not seem to help farmers by any means. It
gave the negative response by turning down the demand for the milk. To respond to this action
of govt., the farmers of Kaira district went on a milk strike. For 15 whole days not a single drop of
milk was sold to the traders. As a result the Bombay milk scheme was severely affected. The milk
commissioner of Bombay then visited Anand to assess the situation. Having seemed the
condition, he decided to fulfill the farmers demand. Thus their cooperative unions were forced
at the village and district level to collect and sell milk on a cooperative basis, without the
intervention of Government. Mr. Verghese Kurien showed main interest in establishing union
who was supported by Shri Tribhuvandas Patel who lead the farmers in forming the Co-operative
unions at the village level. The Kaira district milk producers union was thus established in ANAND
and was registered formally on 14th December 1946. Since farmers sold all the milk in Anand
through a co-operative union, it was commonly resolved to sell the milk under the brand name
AMUL.

With the financial help from UNICEF, assistance from the govt. of New Zealand under the
Colombo plan, of Rs. 50 million for factory to manufacture milk powder and butter was planned.
Dr.Rajendra Prasad, the president of India laid the foundation on November 15, 1954. Shri Pandit
Jawaharlal Nehru, the prime minister of India declared it open at Amul dairy on November 20,
1955.

Success of Amul
The system succeeded mainly because it provides an assured market at remunerative prices for
producers' milk besides acting as a channel to market the production enhancement package.
What's more, it does not disturb the agro-system of the farmers. It also enables the consumer an
access to high quality milk and milk products. Contrary to the traditional system, when the profit
of the business was cornered by the middlemen, the system ensured that the profit goes to the
participants for their socio-economic upliftment and common good. Looking back on the path
traversed by Amul, the following features make it a pattern and model for emulation elsewhere.
Amul has been able to:
• Produce an appropriate blend of the policy makers’ farmers’ board of management and the
professionals: each group appreciating its rotes and limitations,
• Bring at the command of the rural milk producers the best of the technology and harness its
fruit for betterment.
• Provide a support system to the milk producers without disturbing their agro-economic
systems,
• Plough back the profits, by prudent use of men, material and machines, in the rural sector for
the common good and betterment of the member producers and The Union looks after policy
formulation, processing and marketing of milk, provision of technical inputs to enhance milk yield
of animals, the artificial insemination service, veterinary care, better feeds and the like - all
through the village societies.

Basically the union and cooperation of people brought Amul into fame i.e. AMUL (ANAND MILK
UNION LIMITED), a name which suggest THE TASTE OF INDIA.
Today, twelve dairies are producing different products under the brand name Amul. Today Amul
dairy is no. 1 dairy in Asia and no. 2 in the world, which is matter of proud for Gujarat and whole
India.

Amul advertisement
Amul ads, are unique and are a treat for a common man as well as a linguist. These Indian ads,
appearing in billboard format, have been around for over 45 years. These advertisements are
for the product butter. Amul Company has many other products ranging from milk to ice
creams, cheese to chocolates, and milk powder to beverages. By 2005, Amul entered the global
market as well. They also have many other commercials in different modes including videos.
But the one for butter is the most popular and most consistent one. The billboards, placed at
strategic locations in different cities of India, are changed on a weekly basis. The many blogs,
articles and its fan groups on social networks like Facebook reflect its popularity.
Amul ads may be classified according to their themes or the pragmatic function or illocutionary
force or
the language used. Another way of classifying the ads is on the basis of the punning techniques
employed in the main text. If we look at the themes, the ads can be classified as follows:

i. Sports: Cricket; Tennis; Badminton; Olympics

ii. Politics: Regional; National; International
iii. Films: Hollywood and Bollywood
iv. Current events/social issues: Swine flu; Bt brinjal; Narmada dam; scams and scandals
Based on their illocutionary force they may be classified as follows:

a. Condemning: racial attacks; separation of states; wrong-doers; terrorist attacks

b. Complimenting: Sportspersons; world leaders; city’s spirit; new policies; festivals
c. Creating Awareness campaign: to vote; to support a cause
d. Mimicking/Acknowledging other contemporary products: Vodafone; Facebook; Ipod; Films
e. Mourning: Death of celebrities – actors, singers, leaders

Elements of Advertisement
The main elements of Amul ads are the picture, the main text and the slogan. The picture is
what catches the attention of the audience, what ignites the curiosity being always the key
factor to read the message. The contextual knowledge helps in forming the cohesive link
between the textual message and the event depicted as a picture. The slogan usually refers to
the event or people and links it with the product butter in a witty way. Some Examples of Amul
Advertisement which are used since beginning are:-

The first ad was a hit, and the agency suddenly had a popular ad mascot on its hands. The Amul
Girl went on to star in five decades (and counting) of well-loved billboards.

This Advertisement is of 1976, when Helmets where made compulsory in Bombay.

This Advertisement is of 1979, Sunil Gavaskar's cricketing achievement.

This Advertisement is of 1980, Amul Girl celebrating Moscow Olympics.

This Advertisement is of 1983, India wins 1983 Cricket World Cup. The final of 1983, Prudential
Cup was held at Lord’s Cricket Ground on June 25. For West Indies, it was their third successive
world cup final, for India it was its first world cup final. Kapil Dev took the winning catch, this
event contributed to an era where cricket became India’s religion.

This Advertisement is of 1987, on the submarine scam and the Hindujas.

This Advertisement is of 1991, Economic Liberalization of India- Prime Minister Narasimha Rao
along with the then Finance Minister, Manmohan Singh introduced economic reforms which not
only did away with “license raj” but opened India to foreign investors and markets.

This advertisement is of 1993, ‘Choli ke peeche kya hai?’ a raunchy number from the Hindi movie,
Khalnayak, stirs a hornet’s nest.

This advertisement is of 1994, Amul spreads social awareness. A case of fuel for a thought.

This Advertisement is of 1997, India celebrates 50 years of Independence. On August 15, 1997,
India celebrated 50 years of being an independent nation.
This advertisement is of 2005, In June 2005, the Government of India enacted a monumental Act
called the Right to Information Act. This act was recognized as a citizen’s right, it also made the
system more transparent and encouraged citizens into taking more interest in the processes of
the country.

This Advertisement is of 2011, 28 years after India won the Cricket World Cup at Lord’s Stadium,
India won the title for a second time at Wankhede Stadium on April 2, 2011. This win led to an
era of India being the top country in all three cricket formats namely, Test, T-20 and ODI.

This advertisement is of 2013, When Aam admi party joins their hand with Congress party.

This advertisement is of 2015, on the eleventh installment of the sci-fi series Star Wars.
This Advertisement is of 2017, On Bollywood’s latest blockbuster hit, Tiger Zinda Hain

This advertisement is of 2020, Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his address to the nation, on the
novel coronavirus, urged citizens to go on a Janata Curfew from 7 am to 9 pm on March 22. The
Amul mascot, wearing a mask, can be seen standing in the balcony and banging plates. The
cartoon also had pictorial description of three essential steps to fight Covid-19 like sneezing while
covering the mouth, washing hands and avoiding physical contact.

 The picture - Amul girl, the iconic figure with round eyes and blue hair, transforms
herself into different personalities or accompanies different personalities. The
personalities are easy to recognize as they are often the one in the news in that week.

 The slogan/byeline - Slogans have an important role to play. By repetition, they become
part of our memory and also everyday language. The slogan for Amul ads is ‘Utterly
Butterly Delicious’. But it is not used always as seen in the ads above. Sometimes a
parody of it is used as seen in the ad about “Star Wars: the Force Awakens “Star course:
the taste awakens). It is used in such a way that it also refers to the product butter.

 The main text - Once the personalities in the images are resolved, one gets an idea about
the event being referred to. Then, the wit in the text can be understood in a better way.
For example, the next ad is based on the movie poster of ‘Tiger Zinda hai’ but the text is
understood only after watching the movie or knowing about the story or song in the
 movie. The two main leads in this film who both are an agents Tiger ( Salman Khan) and
Zoya (Katrina Kaif) who are forced to come out of hiding to save a group of hostages held
by a militant terrorist organization in Iraq. They both appears on this song “Swag se
karenge sabka swagat” which is was a big hit is shown in this ad “Swad se Swagat”.

 The language used in the ads - An important element of Amul ads is its use of metaphorical
switching or code switching between English and Hindi freely. The corpus helps us study
the code used in the ad from over a period of time. If only monolingual English ads
prevailed earlier, later Hindi made its way and there was code-mixing and code-switching,
though the script remained Roman. Now, we have what we call as “Hinglish” which is
equal use of English and Hindi elements blended as one single code. Hinglish is the
language of the new generation.

Looking at the code used in the ads, they may be classified as monolingual (only English) or
bilingual (English and Hindi). The ads may be classified in a different way based on the punning
element as seen in the sample analyses. Though we will focus on punning which is the trigger for
generating humor, we tried to be representative of the different themes and pragmatic functions
in the selection of our ads in this paper. It will be apt to mention a recent study on Amul ads
which classified the ads based on the three dominant colors used. They found that 1970s ads
were very vibrant and colorful and the late 1990s had more of yellowish shades compared to the
ads of 2000s.

Branding of Amul
In the appearance of globalization and liberalization both brand and branding has become
essential part of every competitive business firm. To become part of competitive and ever
changing business world and to maintain the existing business image business organizations have
been continuously focusing upon introducing new innovative branding practices and strategies.
Present case will be focusing upon brand and branding strategies of Indian brand name dairy
cooperative, AMUL, in western India (Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF))
that has developed as a successful model for doing business in large emerging Indian economy.
Amul is been primarily accountable, through its inventive practices and adaptive to market
changes, for India to become world’s largest producer of milk.

Brand Promotional Strategy

In 1966, Sylvester daCunha, joined ad agency of Amul. At that time, situation of India was like
one couldn't afford to have food and food products. Sylvester daCunha decided it was time to
change the image. Scott Bradbury, the marketing genius behind success of Nike and Starbucks,
once said “A giant brand is a legend that is never completely told. A brand is a symbolic story
that’s developing all the time. Stories create the exciting context that people need to locate
themselves in the larger practices”.
Since the Sixties to the Nineties, the Amul ads have come a long way. whereas most citizens agree
that the Amul ads were at their peak in the Eighties they still continue that the Amul ads continue
to rag a laughter out of them The Amul ads are one of the greatest running ads based on a theme,
now vying for the Guinness proceedings for being the fastest running ad movement ever. While
most of the public agreed that the Amul ads were at their highest point in the Eighties they still
maintain that the Amul ads continue to tease a laughter out of them The Amul ads are one of the
longest running ads based on a theme, now vying for the Guinness records for being the longest
running ad campaign ever.
Many researchers believe that the charm of Amul publicity and popularity lies in the catchy lines
followed by them in the advertisements. Because the humor created by adds was enjoyed by all.
They don't mention on anyone’s nationality or hurt people’s sentiments. These ads are pure and
simple, everyday fun.

Pricing Strategy
Today GCMMF is India's largest exporter of Dairy Products. It has been known as a "Trading
House" status. GCMMF has received the APEDA Award from Government of India for Excellence
in Dairy Product Exports continuously for the last 9 years.
The third aspect is product pricing. It is one of the best promotional strategies adopted by Amul.
It opted for a low-cost pricing strategy for products that are consumed regularly. This pricing
strategy of Amul made it affordable for its target audience. Increasing the price of goods
proportional to their audience’s increase in income helped them retain their customer base. A
competitive pricing strategy, such as a one-on-one offer, was adopted for products facing heavy
competition.
A well planned and executed logistics and supply chain model was incorporated. Amul was a
three-tier cooperative structure.

 At the village level, there were cooperative societies producing milk

 At the district level, there were milk unions with processing centers
 At the state level, there were milk federations responsible for consolidation

Effective implementation of pricing strategy of Amul resulted that, at present Amul has 2.41
million milk producer members with average milk collection of 5.08 million litres/day. Moreover
India, Amul has penetrated overseas markets such as Mauritius, UAE, USA, Bangladesh, China,
Singapore, Australia, Hong Kong and a few South African countries. Its proposal to enter Japanese
market in 1994 had not accomplished, but now again Amul is planning to enter Japanese markets.
Other potential markets under consideration include Sri Lanka.
MEDIA STRATEGY
Advertising is any paid form of non-personal communication to create awareness, develop
perceptions and persuade the audiences to make a specific purchase. Media strategy means the
organized selection of the medium of media to be used so that the preferred message must reach
the target audiences. Thus, depending upon the product or service and also depending upon
target customer’s need media of advertisement and the target market, a promoter makes
choices among the types of media that will provide maximum efficiency and benefit the product
and service too. Brand reputation has been stated in term of consumers perception about quality
associated with a brand Aaker and Keller (1990); Barone and Romeo (2000). Amul butter is mostly
advertised using inventive and innovative hoardings, slogans, usually mocking or depicting the
recent issues. Media strategies helped Amul a lot to build its strong brand reputation over the
customers. As a brand Amul is very well advertised by using intermediates like TV commercials,
print advertisements, and by outdoor advertising. But the company has not paid a lot of attention
for the advertisement of Amul Chocolates which is apparent from the lack of awareness and
disinterest from the public.

Types of media used

1) Print medium
Amul Chocolates started publicity with print advertisement in the 1970s.
But the occurrence and reach of these advertisements was restricted and unsuccessful to create
the desirable buzz in the market.
Amul Chocolates also advertised in Indrajal Comics, a series of comics launched by The Times of
India, in 1964 which was relatively popular in 1970s and 1980s.

2) TV commercials
Series of these advertisements were launched on TV with filling the blanks by the right words of
this punchline. In one of the adds, a young teenage girl sings ‘I am 2 old for dolls, 2 young for the
disco’, her elder sister (I think!!), sings back, “But I think you are just right for Amul chocolates”
in the year 2000, There were 2 famous TV advertisements that were aired in year 2005.

Father – son ad
Father role played by actor Ram kapoor is flying back home from trip and has bought Amul
chocolates for his kid. He habitually keeps the chocolate in the right side of his coat but this time
to puzzle his kid he keeps the chocolate on left side. On coming home the kid checks the left side
only and is very happy to find the chocolates. And in the background of add the wife is shown
smiling. The ad focuses on strength of a father son relation is, similarly a consumer will have an
enduring connection with Amul Chocolates.
Rose day
This advertisement have the tagline that for somebody you love, is acceptable by showing a
boyfriend gifting his girlfriend Amul chocolate which give to happiness the girl. Inspite of these
advertisements being aired for 6 years old; they were also aired during the cooking reality show,
Master Chef India (Amul sponsors) in 2011. This evidently shows that the advertisement was not
altered with the new changing times.

Conclusion
Growth of dealer necessitates promotion with a long-term perspective. It is exciting to note that
this success was attained by AMUL through a procedure of education and social progress
activities - activities that are not generally measured to be standard business practices. Through
its pricing approach, AMUL has been able to make proficient balance in the growth of markets
and suppliers and has attained some degree of synchronization. Brand management and brand
value should be the top precedence of the company Amul is among those companies who have
realized the need for the same. And have measured it as a strategic matter that should be dealt
on regular basis, because in the past companies were differentiating on the basis of products
they manufacture. But now companies who are able to meet and discover customer’s latent
requirements for the long run only these types of brands stay in business.
Humor is one of the best techniques used for marketing products. It creates a receptive attitude.
The ads form a good data to verify different theories of humor. Advertisers in India, including
Amul, use bilingual techniques to relate to the modern Indian. The incongruous elements in the
ad are blended or resolved with the contextual knowledge. The humor thus generated makes the
ad appealing and popular, thus providing a good evidence for humor as a good technique in
marketing.