On the side lines of the much hyped buy-out of Hutch India by world’s largest Telecom operator, Vodafone, I was just wondering what will happen to Cheeka ?? With Hong Kong based Hutchison Whampoa’s investor Li Ka – Shing making a killing out of this deal, Ruia’s of Essar thinking of cashing on the valuation and couple of indiviuals making couple of millions, everybody seems to forgoten Cheeka. Now if you are wondering, who the hell is this Cheeka is, Cheeka is the cute little pug you have seen in Hutch Advertising, which follows the boy to everywhere.

 Ogilvy & Mather, the creative agency of Hutch – Essar, which designed this advertising campaign (around Rs.150 Cr account for O&M), definitely needs a round of applaulse for hitting such a beautiful advertising idea. I think this campaign started to appear somewhere during 2003, when Indian Telecom market was witnessing a fierece competitiaon and every player worth his salt was trying to grab and retain the subscriber. I believe the basic idea, which Hutch/O&M wanted to communicate acorss the mass was “Reach and Reliablity” .

With the punch line “Wherever you go, our network follows”  and the smart use of Pug , ( Dog - which symbaloises trust and reliablity) the message was clear. Hutch’s network and services are reliable and the idea of pug following the boy (played by the eight year old Jayaram, child artist, already featured in couple of advertising before Hutch) to uncommon places like, the Barber shop, the running race, the Bath room etc, it communicated cleraly that Hutch’s network reaches even the uncommon places – the message “extended Reach”. No doubt that everybody agrees with me,  that the advertising campaign was one of the cutest and definitely had very high top of the mind recall. To me the uniqueness of this campaign was it’s simplicity, with no useage of hi-fi technology terms but yet very effectively communicating the message. The pug, played by Cheeka (from UK) became a instant hit and attained the celebraity status.

Some days back my colleuge jokingly asked, it is almost 3-4 years, Hutch has grown substantially, it’s Network has grown, but till the dog (which represnts the network & Hutch) has not grown even an inch (he has a point !!) – but I believe, these canpaigns might have been shooted at the same time, or they have rights to use Cheeka for certain number of years (say 10 years etc) – so you will see the same Cheeka in future advertisings also. Also, people are so much associated with that Pug, any change (even the grown-up Cheeka) will not have the same effect what the Pug had.

Well, all said and done about Cheeka, the big question is, what will happen to Cheeka now ?? with Vodafone setting it’s foot in India through Hutch and eger to establish it’s Brand name in India, it is certain to me, that one clear clauality, in this deal, I can foresee is Cheeka (poor chap) and may be O&M. McCann-Erickson is the global agency which handles Vodafone account globally, so it is not clear yet, whether O&M will reatin the account or will it be handed over to McCann.

 Eventhough the details of the deal are not completelt out yet, it can be very well assumed that, Vodafone had purchased the rights of brand “Hutch” also, which it will like to use for certain initial years (say 1-2 years) before replacing it with Vodafone brand. Building the Vodafone brand makes more sense as it is the brand which operates in almost 27 countries (compared to Hutch, only in India) and is recognaized by hundreads of  millions of users across the globe. Also Vodaphone wants to introduce it’s handsets aggressively in Indian market, for which, I am sure they will aggressively build their brnad name. Operating with dual identities, Hutch for services and Vodaphone for Handsets, will confuse the customers and will definitely erode Vodafones brand image. So my guess is Vodafone will agressively start building it’s brtand in India. No doubt, it will use Hutch brnad for some time, slowly and gradually replacing it with Vodafone brand. So, no wonder that if see Hutch’s logo being replaced by Vodafone at your neighbourhood.

In this entire excise, if I can see somebody smiling loudly, is Advertising agencies (starting from MNC’s like O&M, MaCann to local Hoarding manufacturer) as replacing Hutch brand with Vodafone brand will be a huge task and a challenging one. Of course, it also involves tones of money in doing so (read it as some hundred’s of Cr), but none of the advertising agencies are complaining about it.  But is will be intersting to see, who will bag the account, whether it will be handled by O&M or by MaCann.

The only ray of hope I can foresee for my favouite Cheeka is, using Cheeka in the building of Vodafone brand in India. It will not be a bad idea to use Cheeka in building Vodafone, as people as so much associated with Cheeka, I am sure whether Cheeka represnts Hutch or Vodafone, it will have the same effect.

So hoping to see Cheeka for many more years to come, I would like to close my article with tag line
                  “ Hutch is Dead, Long Live Cheeka “.