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Confirmed: Compare The Meerkat Was Devised By ‘Drunk’ Ad Men

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You suspected it, and it’s true. In this video from Facebook’s August Developer Garage event, ad agency VCCP’s digital head Buster Dover reveals the secret behind one of the year’s most popular social marketing campaigns: “It was a couple of our creatives who were drunk in a pub and decided that Compare The Market sounded quite similar to Compare The Meerkat.” And that’s how you devise a modern ad campaign - simples...


The campaign’s protagonist Aleksandr is available to follow via Facebook and Twitter, “fans” can share “viral” videos and so on - it’s a classic social ad buy, and one pinched by Ask Jeeves. But there was loftier inspiration, Dover claims: “This is absolutely nicked from the Obama campaign ... It’s about having one core idea and going out to as many platforms as possible.”

But nothing revolutionary there - it’s been done before. One marketer for a rival online insurance comparison service told me Compare The Meerkat may be well loved, but may not be driving conversions to actual custom.

Watch Dover’s full presentation here.

Update: Times Online reports, citing Hitwise stats, that the site increased its market share of UK insurance comparison site visits by 76 percent since the campaign was launched in December. At the same time MoneySupermarket.com lost 25.2 percent of visits, Confused.com dropped five percent and GoCompare lost 31.8 percent. Traffic, however, does not always translate into sales.

Update: Buster Dover contacted me to point out that VCCP staff weren’t literally drunk during the brainstorming - indeed, in the history of creative agencies, many an advertising concept has emerged over a pint.

Robert Andrews
@robertandrews Sep 4, 2009 3:00 AM ET

Meerkat

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Posted In: Advertising

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  • dilandinga

    xRVphd I bookmarked this link. Thank you for good job!

  • Keith Geddes

    Of course all they are thinking about is coversions.. that IS the idea of adverts that we the public tend to forget about. So much is spent on some tv ads.. myself, I found the Meerkat ad hillarious from word go.
    I DONT CARE what its advertising, it entertains me and makes me laugh. How many ads do people remember and couldnt tell you WHAT the product was? The ad people themselves are after awards.. and maybe coversions.. good word that.. but the public? NAH.. we DO pay for the ads by buying some of the products, some massive budgets.. so they should be good. In fact now cgi makes you believe the unbelievable.
    I was even more amused there IS a Meerkat site.. mentioning the MonGoose wars.. oh, brilliant?

  • andrew pascoe

    While it is a case study written by the agency, this article from Admap says quotes (a pretty good conversion metric even if it's not sales) have increased by 100%. (It also says market share has tripled, but it's not entirely clear that they mean share of actual insurance business, or share of say site visits to the category.)

    http://www.warc.com/Tracking/ArticleLink.asp?ID=89865&M=Admap_Sept09

  • Nimble Jim

    People can have ideas now, from inside the industry, or more likely (because of sheer numbers) outside it, can communicate that idea independently and creatively and develop audience…

    I wonder how many creatives in ad agencies are thinking that, if they are good, they are not getting paid enough?

    I wonder how many dont even bother to think about working for an agency and are just looking to develop their own clientele?

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