New year, new chapter in the financial services comparison sites battle and the meerkat campaign, with its new ad, looks like its going from strength to strength. Some creative types may call it cheesy. Some online marketers may squirm at its lack of a call to action and question the ROI. In my book it’s a winner.

Though the new “journey of the courageousness” ad out last week seems a little laboured – I prefer the trailer – the campaign continues to fire across all channels, traditional and online, and this is what makes it so powerful. That and, similar to the Cadbury’s gorilla, people just love Aleksandr (okay cards on the table: so do!).

Search on “compare the meerkat” and you’ll see PPC ads referencing the meerkat not just from Compare the Market but from competitor Confused.com. The organic results positively bloom with all things Orlov with varied listings for the spoof site and YouTube videos.

Search was actually instrumental in the evolution of the Meerkat and Aleksandr Orlov campaign.

The meerkat campaign began as a reaction to the difficulty in getting people to differentiate between “compare” brands. Compare the Market ads were being confused with Go Compare and vice versa. The focus was therefore on “market”. The Meerkat campaign  initially had a mixed reaction. The play on words evoked a groan but not much warmth. However there were pluses online. People liked to literally compare meerkats on the spoof site . On PPC ads the keyword “meerkat” was coming in low at 5p compared to £5 for “market”. Building on the meerkat site interaction and exploiting the cheap keyword,  Aleksandr Orlov hits all the right notes. A cuddly, funny character, he is popular and crucially is, or certainly was, different in what is a very competitive market. There is little to choose between the comparison engines. They all save the consumer money, they all save us hours and they all make it so much easier then it was before.

But only Compare the Market has Aleksandr Orlov and boy are they making him work for them.

Hitwise last year reported a 75 per cent increase in traffic market share for Compare the Market. Orlov’s Facebook profile has, at time of writing,  637,843 fans, who were the first to see the previous ad that contributed to a 400% increase in visitors to the Compare the Market site last year. The word “Simples”, the catch-phrase of Orlov, is now so popular it could be accepted into the Oxford English Dictionary according to The Sun no less. If you want to buy the talking toy (limited edition of 5000 sold at Harrods) it’s going for £350 on eBay. He has 36,000+ followers on Twitter and he’s following 33,000.  A Flickr gallery is devoted to him and his relatives.  I did a search on ITunes for comedy podcasts to subscribe to this year. Guess who appeared in the top results? Aleksandr Orlov. I subscribed and it’s pretty good – even an interview with David Hasselhoff – with not one mention of Compare the Market. It’s all the stronger for it. They don’t need a Call To Action. It’s a brand play and whether online or on telly it works just fine. He and they are now in my head.

Some marketers, notably from competitors to Compare the Market, argue that this brand building may not be converting into sales. Interesting, then, that Admiral, owner of confused.com, referenced the meerkat when explaining disappointing results.  We’re now seeing a GoCompare Opera singer and a Haggling Omar Djalili of MoneySupermarket. I wonder whether they’ll find success so simples.

Orlov Toy - no call to action in sight

Tags: admiral, compare the market, confused.com, ebay, facebook, flickr, go compare, hotpoint, meerkat, moneysupermarket, tv ad, twitter

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 10th, 2010 at 8:17 pm and is filed under Search Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.