What if we no longer mixed up “market” and “meerkat”?
Alexsandr Oslov Meerkat
At a quick dinner the other night at the Zurich airport to take a flight back to Paris after a pitch presentation that I’m quite keen about, I asked Kate McMullen, one of the creative directors at BEING Paris: in your opinion as a Brit, which British saga is still missing from #adLOLs (our Saturday post that celebrates the funniest TV ads in the world)? She replies without hesitation: “Compare the market, rather, ‘Compare the meerkat.’” And she was right!
How could I not have spoken to you all before of this campaign that has become a cult classic in
the UK, which stars the now-famous Aleksandr Orlov Meerkat, who now has 810,000 Facebook fans and 53,000 Twitter followers. His wikipedia page says that “it launched in January 2009 and centres on his frustration that people looking for comparethemarket.com to compare car insurance, not meerkats, keep coming to his website comparethemeerkats.com because ‘Market’ sounds similar to ‘Meerkat’ when spoken in a Russian accent”—an insight that speaks to netizens who find themselves on a site they didn’t want to be simply because of a typo. It is my pleasure to show you the entire collection of films (end of the post) along with some of my favorite clips that have transformed Aleksandr Oslov Meerkat into an unforgettable hero in the world of advertising. Like the meerkats’ catchphrase: “Seeem-pels!”
Save Meerkovo
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukLXhUnb59c[/youtube]
Tough Decision
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghHTrbxkrWg[/youtube]
Office
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJXi9_meOas[/youtube]
Flight Attendant
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDR64-yDtpg[/youtube]
Supermarket Checkout
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hECItjRZbYg[/youtube]
Compare the Meerkat: All
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sD3iLg1U3YU[/youtube]