Category Mascots

A six-year-old elephant calf named Kutti-narayanan from Kerala became which mascot of the 1982 Asian Games held in Delhi?

The mascot of the Asian Games held in New Delhi, Appu provided a sneak peek into India’s culture and outlook. The words, ‘Friendship Fraternity Forever’ in English and Hindi accompanied the image. This was the first time that the Asian Games had a mascot. A real-life elephant was the inspiration behind it.

Appu was based on a real elephant, who at the time of the games was just six-years-old. The organizers were denied making a mascot out of a real animal and hence transported Appu’s image on a page. The mascot became associated with the Games that help Delhi on its path to becoming a modern capital city.

 The authorities did not want to make a live animal the mascot but the elephant reportedly captured the public imagination. He fell into a tank in 1992 and was maimed forever but only died in Kerala in his late 20s in 2005.

 

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In 2005, Bengaluru-based airlines Air Deccan used which iconic character created by cartoonist R.K. Laxman as its mascot?

Bangalore-based Air Deccan has struck a deal with R K Laxman, India’s most famous cartoonist, to use his legendary ‘Common Man’ character as the airline’s mascot.     

When Laxman began to draw cartoons he was inspired by Manas in The Times of India, he attempted to represent different states and cultures in India. In the rush to meet deadlines, he began to draw fewer and fewer background characters, until finally he found only one remaining—the now-familiar Common Man. The Common Man generally acts as a silent witness to all the action in the comic. According to anthropologist Ritu Gairola Khanduri, “Clad in a dhoti and a plaid jacket, the puzzled Common Man is no dupe: his sharp observations miss no detail of the political circus.”

Salman Rushdie, who grew up in Bombay on a daily fare of Laxman’s pocket cartoons, mentions the Common Man in two of his books—his 1995 novel The Moor’s Last Sigh and his 2012 autobiography, Joseph Anton.

A statue of the Common man, created by the sculptor Suresh Sakpal, was installed in 2007 along the sea face on Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan road, Worli seaface, Mumbai.

 

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Owned by a duo from Goa, which pug was the popular face of advertisements – despite protests from PETA – for mobile operator Hutchison Essar?

Cheeka is a pug who appeared in the “You & I” advertising campaign of Hutchison Essar’s cellular service in India, along with the child actor Jayaram.

The television ad was the first to be shot, a 60-second sequence in lush green Goa. The role of the boy was played by Jayaram, an eight-year-old who had already starred in four other ads. Cheeka was suggested for the role by an assistant at Nirvana Films, the makers of the ad. The campaign became a hit, and was soon followed by a print version for newspapers. Cheeka earned ?150,000 for the campaign, and appeared in Hutch ads, till the merger with Vodafone India, representing the network. She featured with her pink nose, when Hutch changed its signature color from orange to pink.

The ad campaign was followed by a rise in the popularity of pugs in India, and the sale of pugs more than doubled within months, with prices shooting up from about ?10,000 to ?20,000-60,000. A few other ads also appeared in the following months, inspired by the idea of a dog following a boy. In addition, Cheeka was the wallpaper most often downloaded by Hutch customers onto their phone screens in 2005.

 

Picture Credit : Google

Created by noted cartoonist R.K. Laxman, which little boy with a paint-brush was the mascot for Mumbai-based Asian Paints, for decades?

Gutsy Gattu was conceived by renowned cartoonist R.K. Laxman in 1954, when Asian Oil and Paint Company had a massive turnover of Rs. 3.5 lakhs. GATTU, the little Boy with wet Brush in hand happens to be the mascot / trade mark of Asian Paints in India.

The Gattu experiment was vastly different from what rivals at that time were doing. Jenson & Nicholson, for example, attempted to speak to an upwardly-mobile, urban audience in the seventies, with the ‘When you think of colour, think of us’ campaign. Gattu appealed to the masses and helped Asian Paints become the leader.

With Gattu’s track record, it was tough to axe it, but Asian Paints went ahead. It was trying to shake off its mass-market tag for a more premium appeal in the 21st century. This was the first of its two brand makeovers, where the emphasis shifted from the lovable icon to a corporate identity. The second makeover, three-four years ago, saw Asian Paints shortened to AP in the logo.

Asian Paints has also consolidated its earlier home solutions offerings under its paint solutions brand, Ezycolour, determinedly moving into the services space.

 

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In 2017, the Kanha Tiger Reserve got an official mascot named Boorsingh. The mascot is Madhya Pradesh’s which state animal?

Kanha has become the first tiger reserve in India to officially introduce a mascot — Bhoorsingh the Barasingha — to present the hard ground swamp deer as the spirit of the reserve and spread awareness to save it from possible extinction. Barasingha, or swamp deer, is the state animal of Madhya Pradesh.

The mascot aims to present the hard ground swamp deer (Barasingha) as the spirit of the reserve and spread awareness to save it from possible extinction.

The mascot has been designed by cartoonist Rohan Chakravarty, who runs a popular website greenhumour.com which showcases over 350 cartoons, comics and illustrations on wildlife and nature conservation, environment, sustainability etc.

Barasingha, or swamp deer is a deer species distributed in the Indian subcontinent. It is the state animal of Madhya Pradesh.

Kanha National Park was created in June 1955 and was made the Kanha Tiger Reserve in 1973. Today it stretches over an area of 940 square km in the two istricts Mandla and Balaghat.

The park has a significant population of Bengal tiger, Indian leopards, sloth bear, barasingha and Indian wild dog.

 

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Created in the 1970s, which little girl in a white frock was the face of advertisements for an Ahmedabad-based detergent brand, after which she was named?

The girl on the Nirma packaging was actually the daughter of the founder of the company, Karsanbhai Patel. Even the name “Nirma” was derived from her – she was called Nirmala, and had passed away in an accident.

In the 1970s, the Indian washing powder market was dominated by Hindustan Lever Limited (HLL) and its Surf was pretty much THE detergent powder to use. While Surf was seen to be a little on the expensive side, people were willing to pay a slight premium for the convenience and consistency it provided. And well, the alternatives were either just as expensive or not really quite as good in terms of quality and performance. That changed with the emergence of a washing power called Nirma in the early seventies.

The ad started out as a relatively short one, but as the years passed, it became slightly longer, going up to a minute. And it almost always followed the same template – it featured a number of people singing, dancing and otherwise being very active at a variety of locations, ranging from a stage to locations like India Gate. These shots are interspersed with clothes being washed (of course, always by women). And then towards the end, the ad focuses on four ladies carrying packets of Nirma powder with them. It begins and closes out with the “Nirma girl,” the brand’s mascot who is seen twirling on the packets of washing powder.

The Washing Powder Nirma jingle is still widely played by people who just like to listen to it. People even sing the song on Smule, a social networking platform. Now, how’s that for being a chartbuster.

 

Picture Credit : Google