Compare The Meerkat IMC Campaign By Comparethemarket.com

Selected IMC campaign

The selected IMC campaign is “Compare the Meerkat” for comparethemarket.com, which is a price evaluation website, and a fragment of the BCL Group. This advertisement features Aleksandr Orlov, who is a CGI humanlike Russian meerkat, along with his friends and family. The advertisement portrays Orlov as an upper-class stock as well as a creator of comparethemeerkat.com. This particular campaign mainly focused on all those frustrations over the confuse to select between his website and comparethemarket.com. It stated the resemblance between the world’s “market and meerkat”. The campaign was launched on 5th January, 2009 and it was created by VCCP, an advertising agency (Crosscup and McLean 2009). The advertisement was evidenced to be famous and it even became a marketable success for the company of comparethemarket.com. In addition to this, the organization became the 4th most visited website  of insurance in the regions of the UK. Apart from this, a book presenting Orlov was also issued in the year 2010 and other goods were created about the campaign. This particular campaign planned by the advertisement agency included a companion website, TV spot, and social media links (Miles and Ibrahim 2013). The advertisement demonstrated Alexandr Orlov, who is a CGI animated Russian meerkat, and criticises about his confusion between selecting among both the sites. The character clarifies in the advertisement, that he has launched a TV advertising campaign in order to make their visitors aware of the differences between both the websites. The companion website, comparethemeerkat.com was established along with the TV advertisement, and in the year 2010, it received more than around 2 million successes per month. The characters and television adverts within the advertisement were directed by Darren Walsh, who works at Nickelodeon productions. Darren Walsh has directed all of the commercials in television and cinema related to meerkat to date, and he has even earned several honours for his work.

On 26th November 2012, the company of comparethemarket.com began to sponsor ITV1’s long- running soap opera, Coronation Street with a deal of three- years. Apart from this, the campaign was launched in the regions of Australia on 1st February, 2013. On 3rd April, 2015, the company of comparethemarket.com even launched movies on meerkat, which provided the customers with two for one movie tickets. In addition to this, the company even aligned with movies such as Ant- Man and Terminator Genisys. The organization’s advertisement featured in the movie’s trailer, and now and then it even showed Orlov and the cast’s interview along with the comment that included that “the movie tickets are two- for- one with meerkat movies”. Apart from this, on 3rd July, 2018, comparethemarket exposed providing meerkat meals to their customers which offered two for one meal at specific restaurants around the regions of the United Kingdom (Patterson, Khogeer and Hodgson 2013). In addition to this, the service even offered their new customers free meals, mainly the ones who bought a limiting product of the company within the period of one year. In relation to the campaign, comparethemarket.com ranked at the 4^th most visited website for insurance by the customers, mainly in the regions of the United Kingdom, and till 16^th January 2008, the website’s overall success got doubled. By the year 2010, the website increased the market share by around 76% whereas its competitor’s website’s reach fell by 30% during the same time period. In addition to this, the wordplay of “meerkat vs. market” was among the high cost of later keyword which subsidised in the search engine listings (Marcommnews, 2019).

Elements of IMC campaign

Inclusive, it can be said that the campaign for comparethemarket.com was a dazzling perception that moved multiple implementations in the United Kingdom. It even created a buzz among the overall population of the United Kingdom that it is extraordinary among the industry of insurance comparison. The advertisement has been running for five long years and it has even caused in the entering of the slogan “Simples”, from the main character, Alexandr Orlov, within the Oxford English Dictionary. The company has even launched a repeated use of the copy for comparethemarket.com within the 10th implementation and it demonstrated the silly old senior citizens which made the message memorable among the consumer (The Drum, 2017) s. Apart from this, the Russian phrasing and accenting used in the campaign in all the websites, TV, and social media has furthermore advanced the nature of characters along with the brand. The main goal of this advertisement was to double the business of comparethemarket and it has eventually helped the owner to achieve an estimated wealth of £420 million. In addition to this, the advertisement was also voted the most liked advertisement of the year 2012 (Hackley and Hackley 2019). However, this advertisement was only relevant to its wide target market who are the others demanding insurance and aged 17 and above. The advertisement is ethical, though an issue occurred during the campaign in the year 2009 when Guardian Newspaper ran a piece of judgment condemning the advertisement of discrimination for mocking Eastern European accents. However, the Advertising Standards Authority has specified that this was the only single criticism that they have received as a piece of opinion from a single author. Overall, it is agreed that this particular advertisement was amazingly effective and it has formed a part of a much greater and more fruitful campaign. Most significantly, this advertisement is the most likable and memorable one and there was an extraordinary response from the customers as they started using the website of comparethemarket.com only to obtain a free meerkat toy of their preferences.

The price comparison website, comparethemarket.com has had tremendous success offering free meerkat toys to their new customers as a means of attracting them and retaining them, however after seven years of its successful running, the company is finally retiring the scheme. It means that the customers will have a difficult time if they want to get Aleksandr Orlov and Sergei toys. Furthermore, the company has even stated that they will have limited- edition toys for the new customers in the future (Hackley and Hackley 2019). The organization is currently focusing on the meerkat movie which demonstrates the organization’s pledge towards gratifying their customer’s loyalty. Therefore, it can be said that this advertising campaign of the organization was one of the most effective and long-running campaigns. In addition to this, around 70% of the company’s profit in the UK was due to this advertising campaign.

The main elements used by the organization for this campaign were TV Spot, Companion website, and social media links.

TV-

When the TV advertising market was facing a downturn, nobody thought that an animated meerkat with a Russian accent can increase the revenue of advertising industry by a huge number. After the campaign hit TV screens, Alexander Orlov, who was the face of the price comparison website, comparethemarket.com, became a marketing wonder. With the help of the concept and Russian accent, Orlov was able to capture the minds and hearts of numerous public, which even increased hundreds of thousands of followers on his Facebook and Twitter accounts. The impact of Orlov on the advertising industry was associated to that of Howard Brown and banking advertising on which he debuted on TV on boxing day 2000. The TV advertising reached out to several individuals and the campaign made huge success as they were able to seize the public’s attention (Camilleri 2018). The TV advertisement was shown in the regions of the United Kingdom and it even proved the power of TV advertising.

Website-

This particular advertisement was also published on the comparethemarket.com website to attract existing customers. With the help of this, the company reached out to a huge number of customers who were already associated with the company. The main strategy of the company was to target the customers who have watched the video and have shown interest in the same (Patti et al. 2017). These customers were asked to join the company by taking insurance or the already existing ones were encouraged to renew their insurances.

Social media-

Compare The Market used premium video to support their campaign on social media platforms. In addition to this, the advertiser even paid Facebook in order to reach 5.6 million social media users among 26 million Facebook users of the United Kingdom on a 24- hour daily basis. Apart from this, the premium video was also supported with a direct response to Facebook advertising which included page post link advertisements in order to target the users who have watched the video (Caemmerer 2009). The company messaged the viewers inspiring to purchase insurance products with the motivation of getting a free limited edition meerkat toy. In addition, the customers who have their insurance due for renewable were also targeted by the company if they have watched the video or shown interest.

The ultimate objective of integrated marketing communication is to tie all of the features of marketing communication so that it can work pleasantly and flawlessly. With the help of an IMC campaign, the brand works with different modes to create a unified experience for its clients. The customers are presented with a similar style and tone that strengthens the brand’s message. Apart from this, the main aspect of an IMC campaign is the interaction between different marketing elements as it helps the organization to exploit its cost-effectiveness.

The content of comparing the market’s campaign was to put a stop at scheming and taking stress about managing their money. It rather focused on encouraging the people to feel that they have control over their finances and has highlighted the good versus bad about money management. All of the elements of the IMC campaign of the company demonstrated the same goal with the help of this advertisement. Also, with the help of this campaign, the company achieved its 12- month objective just in 9 weeks, which proved that it was a success and they have been able to reach out to their customers and have successfully explained the main aim of the campaign.

The theory of consumer behavior is related to the study of how an individual decides while purchasing as this helps the businesses and marketers to take advantage of these particular behaviors by estimating when and how a consumer will make a purchase (Kaufmann-Hayoz et al. 2012). Certain factors influences the consumer behavior which are:

• The psychological factors consist of an individual’s perception, and attitude about a particular situation, their ability to understand the information, their motivational factors, their beliefs, and personality.
• The personal characteristics include gender, age, financial situation, background, occupation, location, and culture. An aged person shops in a different manner as compared to the younger person. For instance: The need for insurance among the older and the younger generation.
• The social factors include an individual’s family, friends, community, school or work community, or groups with whom they are associated (Faiers, Cook and Neame 2007). It even includes living conditions, social class, and education, which highly depend upon their behavior and characteristics about making a purchase decision.

According to the Theory of Reasoned Action, the consumers act on the behaviors which they believe will build or obtain a specific outcome, similar or otherwise (LaCaille 2020). Rational decision- making is a vital element that drives the customers to make a purchase. From the context of the organisation’s campaign, the advertisement that runs on the TV attracted a huge number of old age customers and have motivated them to purchase the product. According to the Motivation Need Theory, the needs of humans contend them to act to gratify as well as fulfill their needs based on five priorities of increasing importance – psychological survival, safety, love, esteem, and self- actualisation (Green et al. 2017). From the context of the campaign which ran on the social media platforms, it has attracted a huge number of Gen Z and millennials, and as the company targeted the customers who viewed the campaign, it demonstrated that they emphasize showing the needs to those individuals, which they must have. In relation to the Theory of Buyer Behaviour, the company posted its campaign on its website through which they attracted their existing customers so that they can remain loyal to the organization (Chia et al. 2016).

References:

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Camilleri, M.A., 2018. Integrated marketing communications. In Travel marketing, tourism economics and the airline product (pp. 85-103). Springer, Cham.

Chia, J., Harun, A., Kassim, A.W.M., Martin, D. and Kepal, N., 2016. Understanding factors that influence house purchase intention among consumers in Kota Kinabalu: an application of buyer behavior model theory. Journal of Technology Management and Business, 3(2).

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LaCaille, L., 2020. Theory of reasoned action. Encyclopedia of behavioral medicine, pp.2231-2234.

Marcommnews, 2019. comparethemarket.com launches marketing campaign for its innovative car insurance service – Marketing Communication News. [online] Marcommnews.com. Available at: https://marcommnews.com/comparethemarket-com-launches-marketing-campaign-for-its-innovative-car-insurance-service/  [Accessed 23 March 2022].

Miles, C. and Ibrahim, Y., 2013. Deconstructing the meerkat: Fabular anthropomorphism, popular culture, and the market. Journal of Marketing Management, 29(15-16), pp.1862-1880.

Patterson, A., Khogeer, Y. and Hodgson, J., 2013. How to create an influential anthropomorphic mascot: Literary musings on marketing, make-believe, and meerkats. Journal of marketing management, 29(1-2), pp.69-85.

Patti, C.H., Hartley, S.W., van Dessel, M.M. and Baack, D.W., 2017. Improving integrated marketing communications practices: A comparison of objectives and results. Journal of marketing communications, 23(4), pp.351-370.

The Drum, 2017. Compare the Market: MMT Digital. [online] The Drum. Available at: https://www.thedrum.com/news/2017/06/06/compare-the-market-mmt-digital  [Accessed 23 March 2022]