The ‘Hutch dog’, in the commercials for the Indian cellular operator Hutch, was supposed to be phased out. Seems like he’s back! 🙂 Saw this new ad while watching Ocean’s Twelve (dunno how many times I’ve seen it) yesterday. ‘Chika’, was the name of the original pug, but I think he’s been replaced recently, by well, a new mutt. I think Vodafone must have faced a lot of alienation of ideology among its subscriber base after the sudden name switch, which they did overnight.
The Hutch pug commercials earlier weren’t that great – in the sense that the dog really was there just for the cuteness factor. The new Vodafone commercial actually seems nice though, because using the dog to get the message across is being used quite effectively. Watch the Vodafone India ‘Helpful Dog’ ad below.
Off topic, but I’ve noticed that the cell info display for the Vodafone network STILL gives the operator as Hutch! I found this out when I was trying to roam on another network my home network Delhi itself, the day I came back from the NTU exam. Airtel, or for that matter, everyone’s network seemed to have conked out around the airport that day because of the sheer number of people in that area. So I was trying to search for any working networking, and saw that Vodafone (obviously) is still listed as ‘Hutch’. THAT is something they need to sort out quick, rather than million dollar advertisement campaigns.
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Ah yes, I got it now. The name of the new Hutch / Vodafone dog is ‘Rocky’. His owner lives in Goa. BTW, the aboce ad was shot in South Africa; and silly ‘animal rights activists’ have taken the advertisers to court saying that ‘dog was made to undergo too much exertion’. What retards!