If every dog has its day, then yesterday, today, and the following few days in India belong to pugs. The breed isn't exactly a stranger to fame or fortune. One of the earliest known dog breeds-back from before 400 BC and it is of oriental origin-it became the dog of Holland's House of Orange when one of its kind saved, or so the story goes, the life of Prince William by warning him of the approach of the Spaniards in Hermingny in 1572 (if you must know, the prince was camped there during a routine military exercise; a Spanish general attacked the camp with a force of 1,000, but William, awakened by his pug made good his escape). In 1688, when William III landed in England to be crowned king, his entourage included several pugs that became the rage in the country.

India, circa 2003 is pretty far from England, circa 1688. There's not much palace intrigue, politics, despite the unending series of elections, bores most people, and the television and the mobile phone (some 100 million of the former and 20 million of the latter) preside over a country which, despite its socialist past, is fast learning that the pursuit of Mammon isn't half as bad as it was made out to be. And 16-month-old pug Cheeka is one of the country's newest stars, not as famous as cricketer Sachin Tendulkar, but far more so than assorted soap-opera and film-stars, even politicos. Attribute that to the fact that she appears in a campaign for a mobile TELCO, Hutch. Attribute it also to the fact that the campaign is aired on TV, apart from appearing in print, and on outdoor media like hoardings and bus shelters. And attribute it to the unbeatable cute-kid-cuter-dog-good-music-great-location ad itself.

The Quest For Cheeka

Here's one way of looking at it: had India's cellular telephony market not boomed when it did, Cheeka would have lived out her life in happy obscurity. Fortunately for her, it did, and telcos were just a little slow in upgrading their networks to meet the increasing demands of traffic. Calls dropped, quality of service suffered, and subscribers moaned. So, when Hutch wanted to communicate the fact that its networks were, in fact, robust enough to support growing traffic, and wide enough to promise coverage even in little known corners of the areas where its service was available, it decided to go on the communication offensive. The TELCO briefed Renuka Jaypal, the national business director of its advertising agency O&M; the lady, in turn, gave strict instructions to creative (noun, not adjective) duo V.Mahesh and Rajeev Rao from the agency's Mumbai office. The two spent that entire night in creative hibernation in an 80 square feet room in O&M's Lower Parel office in Mumbai. By morning, the duo had decided that it would communicate the network's reach "without the tech, using emotions", in art director Rao's words. Then came the theme-"Wherever you go, our network follows you"-and after a few false starts, the big idea, a dog that would follow a boy from dawn to dusk, even to the most unlikely places (think school, barber's shop, bath). "Man's best friend was the simplest analogy that could represent unconditional support," says Jaypal.

Things rapidly fell in place: Goa-green grass, blue skies, beautiful rain-was the chosen locale for the first ad, a 60-seconder; Jayram, an eight-year-old from Bangalore and the veteran of four commercials was the boy; but of the dog itself, there was no sight yet. It was an assistant at Nirvana Films, the makers of the ad, who suggested that there was a pug in Goa itself that merited a dekko. The agency wasn't amused. "A pug?" they chorused in disbelief but agreed to take a look at it anyway. And so it was that Cheeka, an English pug belonging to Vishal and Lisa Bambekar made the cut.

Up, Up, And Away

The campaign worked and how. "It impacts your emotional retina in such a way that you enjoy it while it is happening," says advertising legend Alyque Padamsee, now President, AP Amalgamated, who sees a "creative paradox" behind the success of the Hutch ads. "You rarely see pugs in ads because they are ugly," he says. "This goes against the grain and that's why it clicks." And pug sales, say pet shops across the country, have more than doubled since the first ad of the campaign was aired in September, with prices shooting up from Rs 10,000-12,000 to Rs 20,000-60,000. That worries Chennai-based R.Padmachandran, Director, Dogsindia.com, a canine resource portal. "Pugs have great character, large affectionate eyes, and are very good with children," he gushes, "but such publicity gives rise to a huge demand which is met by backyard breeders who flout norms, thereby flooding the market with poor quality pups." He remembers the craze for Dalmatians that followed the release of 101 Dalmations (the new one). "Raising a dog isn't a two-year affair; it requires a commitment of at least 10 years," he says. Padmachandran is certain that, like the many low-pedigree Dalmatians that can't find buyers today, the Hutch ad will engender a horde of low pedigree pugs. And Cheeka's owner Vishal says the Russian menace (low-pedigree lots of popular breeds are smuggled into India from Russia, a trend that has been on for the past few years) has now extended to include the pug. "These are larger, of mixed breed, and can survive the tropics," he says. Originals like Cheeka-the Bambekars got her from a friend in the UK for around £ 1,000 (Rs 76,000)-can't stand the heat.

Meanwhile Cheeka (she earned Rs 1.5 lakh for the Hutch campaign, and hasn't starred in any other) continues to lead an idyllic life in Goa, sharing her home with, apart from the Bambekars, a Chihuahua, a Pomeranian (oops!), and a Persian cat. Vishal says he feels proud when Cheeka appears on the tube, but likes to think that she doesn't realise what she has done. For the record, dogs can see television, although not as a continuous image (they see it as a series of stills). As for the increase in demand for her kind (or, what she's done for pugs across the country), we doubt if anyone realises the implications. Woof!