World Milk Day: Celebrating Amul's iconic 'Doodh hai wonderful' advertisement
What's the story
World Milk Day is observed on June 1 every year, for spreading the importance of milk. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations has been celebrating this occasion since 2001. Today we raise a toast to the famous and iconic doodh hai wonderful advertisement, which has made kids and adults fall in love with the white liquid all the more.
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People old and young danced to 'Doodh hai wonderful'
To give a refresher, the ad featured both old and young, getting entranced with milk. Representing India, small kids, office workers, an old Parsi couple, a mime artist, a magician, and even a Kathakali dancer were seen chanting, "Doodh hai wonderful, pee sakte hai roz glass full." Mostly sung by Kunal Ganjawala, the tune has catchy chorus, with light instruments supporting his mellifluous voice.
Do you know?
Not Amul, NDDB was behind the project
Often remembered as an Amul advertisement, Doodh Doodh was actually a campaign by the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) to popularize milk. Created by the global advertising agency FCB Ulka, makers wanted to present milk as "cool," to rival then newly emerging artificial drinks.
Composer
'It conveys a sense of good times, sunshine, and beach'
Makers had to create an advertisement that would click with the young adults, and hence went with the Hinglish (Hindi + English) approach, a tactic not-so-common in the 1990s. Leslee Lewis, who composed the jingle, had once said the advertisement carried reggae music inspired by Barbados and the Caribbean. "It conveys a sense of good times [and] sunshine," one-half of Colonial Cousins had added.
Featured
Did you recognize the faces?
Released in the mid-1990s as part of the Piyo Doodh campaign, the fun advertisement featured several known faces of today. We had Samir Soni twisting carefree, while Kelly Dorji cheekily made his way toward a glass of milk. It also notably had actors Yatin Karyekar, Malvika Tiwari, director Homi Adajania, and fashion designer Anaita Shroff Adajania (the milk mustache girl). What an ensemble!