‘For my dad Sylvester daCunha, the brand was always bigger than the individual’: Rahul daCunha Premium

Rahul daCunha on his late father, Sylvester, and the lessons to be learnt from the legacy of the Amul advertising campaign  

For many Indians, the morning news is incomplete without the Amul girl’s daily tongue-in-cheek take on current affairs, newsmakers and celebrities. The iconic noseless girl with blue hair and a red polka-dot frock rode in on a billboard horse in March 1996, in her first Utterly Butterly Delicious advertisement, and has stayed top of mind ever since. The brainchild of adman Sylvester daCunha, it is now in the Guinness Book of World Records as the longest-running advertising campaign in the world.

Sylvester, who passed away on June 20 at the age of 92, was one of India’s creative legends. After he started his own advertising agency, daCunha Communications, in 1962, he worked with a myriad of major brands, including Britannia biscuits, Lakmé, and Tata Tea. A multitasker, he was also the founder of the Theatre Group of Bombay, and served as a food and nutrition consultant on a number of projects with the World Bank and UNICEF.

Looking back at his father’s legacy, his son Rahul daCunha says, “The Amul girl is a great Indian icon. One reason why she is loved is because she’s gone beyond the brand — she’s everyone’s daughter. And that’s what an icon does. That’s what Dad did. With life being so uneasy, you look to these icons to reassure you that life is okay.”

Adman and digital marketer Shubho Sengupta catches up with Rahul, the current director of daCunha Communications, to reminisce his father’s legacy and the days ahead.

Shubho Sengupta: India has lost a legend, with the passing of Sylvester daCunha. But his legacy is in able hands. What is the secret of your Dad’s greatest success, the Amul brand’s longevity? The only icon that comes close is The Rolling Stones.

Rahul daCunha: The only way that we have a slight one up on the Stones is that they wrote all their songs between the 60s and the 80s, and are still living off the same songs. I want a new single every single day. [Laughs.] Just kidding!

There is no way that one is able to tell when you create something, if it will have longevity, sustainability. Will it be a big idea? Nowadays, there are too many advertising people. And I don’t know whether it’s because of social media, moment marketing, or the meme culture, but people don’t think in terms of something that will last forever.