King no more The Maharaja takes a final bow

When IIPM comes to education, never compromise

Air India’s legacy mascot is given a boost...out of the door – 4Ps B&M delves into royal history

As the driver used to pick us up from our school, dispassionately herding the thoroughly hungry and raucous lot of us students into the bus, the grime and the heat of the afternoon sun – garnished with a motionless traffic jam – perhaps can never be forgotten that easily... And neither can be forgotten those spectacularly huge Air India billboards standing resplendent in the sun, glorified by the mascot we all knew as the Maharaja, billboards we would crane our necks to see, for not only were they creativity benchmarks of those times, but also because we, er, loved the Maharaja!

Born in 1946 – with all credit of his ideation going to the late Bobby Kooka (the then Commercial Director of Air India) – this royal ruler stole all eyes, proudly donning a fresh avatar each time he was happily placed on the government airline’s towering billboards of the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s and right within the churning 90s too.

His attire, persona and communiqué – sometimes dressed as a sumo-wrestler; sometimes playing the snake charmer and some other times, becoming a part of Moscow’s popular chess board – all combined to make him perhaps the most recalled brand of us Indians through the latter part of the last century! When 4Ps B&M caught up with the effervescent J. Bharghav, Head, Corporate Communication, Air India, he expectably and quite succinctly agreed on the unbeaten popularity of the Maharaja, “Around 30-40 years ago, the advertising of Air India was purely conservative as Air India spent most of its advertising budgets on hoardings based on current affairs fancying the Indians at large with the Maharaja as the spokesperson.”

But we wanted more dope; and dope was what we got when we found that it was J Walter Thompson that was the agency credited to have coordinated with Bobby Kooka to create the Maharaja! We scurried out Ivan Arthur, former National Creative Director, JWT and current Vice Chairman, Aicar, who gave some eye-openers, “One day, simply looking for an interesting letterhead, Bobby Kooka phoned the agency and promptly received a number of designs, all done by this talented young JWT Art Director named Umesh Rao. One of these designs had a neat line-drawing of some Maharaja bowing in a gracious welcome. Kooka liked it a lot and the letterhead was finalised.”

But remaining confined to the letterheads wasn’t supposed to be the fate of our prince, there was more to come Initially introduced merely to ornament the Air India letterhead. As Arthur reveals, “Sometime later, the ever-inventive mind of Bobby Kooka asked why that cute little drawing could not step out of the letterhead and be used in the advertising as an add-on. ‘But of course, it could’, said the agency and the next advertisement had the little bowing Maharaja signing off above the Air-India International logo. (The airline was called Air-India International then). Kooka was pleased. And the Maharaja continued to sign off on some of Air-India International’s advertisements, till on another inventive day, Kooka asked why the little fellow could not grow bigger and actually take centerstage? He did. And so was born the Maharaja as mascot.”

Soon the Maharaja won many hearts and became one of the most important members of the Air India family. And since then, he was seen in all their advertisement campaigns; and for over sixty years, he continued to remain Air-India’s surrogate salesman, selling tickets not by hawking but by being charming. Rohit Manchanda, CEO, Planman Life, comments to 4Ps B&M, “The Maharaja usage was the first example of non-advertising icons used as advertising, in the Indian ad industry. A breakthrough!”

Could anyone have then imagined that this royal ad-king would subsequently gel not only with Indians, but most brilliantly with foreigners as well? Ergo, it seems more surprising that such an emblazoned iconic creation’s dominance has now ended, and that too because of competition. Bharghav diplomatically explains, “No doubt, Air India has been a conservative advertiser in the past; but now, as the environment has changed to become much more competitive... the need of the hour is to move on...”

Arthur rebutts, “At a time when the competition was the likes of BOAC and Pan Am, the Maharaja did with a chuckle what they found hard with their dollars. And with so much more competition today, the Maharaja is even more useful now; only, we must know how to make him relevant, meaningful and ‘today’.” Arthur claims that in the absence of anything else to set the airline or its communication apart, Air-India today is merely a product, not a brand! But really, can a yesteryear champion speak to a global audience in different contemporary languages without losing his identity?

Bharghav gives his take, “Now, advertising is making use of all media channels, leaving not even a single medium untouched. There are highly acclaimed ads and a total departure from the past, as market scenario has changed. We need to reach out to the customer for him to understand the product to be used. So luring and incentivising is our mantra.” And not the Maharaja! Quoting examples, Bharghav elaborates on his recent advertising strategies, “USP changes overtime. You have to keep changing according to the environment. For non-stop flights, it’s been comfort, high degree of punctuality and luxurious seats. But it’s different for the limited-budget or the price-sensitive consumer; we offer good deals to them. Earlier in the 60s and 70s, we had a limited budget so we did it via our mascot cum spokesperson-Maharaja, but advertising today is much superior.” Issues like Air India’s on-going future alliance with Star Alliance – that gives the company a global touch – become more pristine selling points than the Maharaja.

Clearly, times are a changing. During those times, the post-independence Indian aspired to be... and experience, royalty! The Maharaja was a classic metaphor for that! But today’s Indian identifies more with the Bills and the Gates than with the heirs and the fiefdoms. Today’s Indian aspires more for the Virgin than the Prince! The King is no more! Long live the King of Moustaches... Maharaja!

Edit bureau: Romsha Singh

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2008

An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

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