43 When it all goes right, stay with it

43

WHEN IT ALL GOES RIGHT, STAY WITH IT

All organisations hope that they can capture people’s attention in a good way with their brand identity. To remember the brand name, the catchphrase, for sales to double in a year, and to generate a second profi table business from the merchandise is almost unheard of. But that’s what happened to Compare The Market.

The idea Compare the Market’s meerkats advertising is a great example. Meerkats with Russian accents, getting annoyed at people for accidentally visiting their website comparethemeerkat.com when they are really looking for cheap car insurance. The catchphrase, “simples”, pronounced with frustration and in a Russian accent, has made it straight into the English language. It is offi cially allowed in Scrabble – despite an argument in one of the ads when Sergei didn’t want Aleksandr to use it – as it’s the plural of simple, a noun meaning a herbal remedy.

The agency VCCP created Aleksandr the Russian meerkat, which was then turned into a brilliantly lifelike CGI model by Passion Pictures. You can buy the Aleksandr soft toy and his “autobiography” A Simples Life.

The original ads have been followed up with War and Peace style epics about how meerkats from Africa ended up in Russia. There are ads fi lmed in the fi ctional village of Meerkova. The spoof website comparethemeerkat.com gets millions of visitors But the important

point is that their real site, comparethemarket.com doubled its business in the year the ads came out.

In a recent campaign, television ads promise soft toys – 100% cute – to everyone who buys their insurance through Compare the Market. The Russian meerkats arrive at the homes of Compare the Market customers to present them with their gifts. These ads also entertaining, you actually look forward to the breaks in the television programmes hoping you get to see another.

The original creative idea was sheer genius. Combining something rather dull – comparing insurance prices – with something people love to watch on television, meerkats.

In practice • The best creative ideas come from combining two other ideas in an unusual way. • When you’re successful with one idea, build on it rather than putting all your resources into having another successful idea. • Creative people get bored with their old ideas a lot more quickly than customers do; that’s why they deserve their place in the creative team. Use your idea until it shows signs of becoming less successful. When you’ve found the winning formula, keep stirring the mixture.