Claire Beale on Advertising: Worried ... Independent
Aleksandr Orlov has 536,542 fans on Facebook; probably more by the time you read this. At least 24,000 Tweeters are following him on Twitter. He has had more than 50 proposals of marriage and nearly 1,000 people have signed his petition to get the word "seemples" (simple) into the Oxford English Dictionary.
In eight short months, the British public has adopted the dapper Russian meerkat Aleksandr and his beautifully ridiculous "comperthemeerkat" website. Even better: this wave of affection has transformed the fortunes of the price-comparison website Comparethemarket.com which is, after all, paying for the whole caboodle.
So it is no surprise that Aleksandr has sent shockwaves through the price comparison website market. There is now a mad scramble among rivals to rethink their marketing strategies. Gocompare.com has just launched a new television advertising campaign to rebuild its profile. Learning from Aleksandr, it too has tried to create a standout frontman for its brand and its new campaign stars the opera-singing "Gio Compario". Hmmm.
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But when my car insurance quote dropped on the mat recently Dominic showed me how to use comparison websites and helped me chop my bill by £250," she and more »
