Last Updated on July 24, 2026
CPA down 73%
Awareness 20% to 59%
12-month targets hit in 9 weeks
Still running 17 years later
The move
In 2008, Compare the Market was the fourth-biggest name in a category of four. Price comparison sites all said the same thing, shouted it equally loudly, and paid the same brutal rates for the same Google keywords. The word ‘market’ was one of the most expensive terms in UK paid search.
The insight that changed everything was partly a media-buying hack: ‘market’ was expensive, but ‘meerkat’ cost pennies. VCCP built a campaign around the confusion. Aleksandr Orlov, an aristocratic Russian meerkat, appeared on TV in January 2009, exasperated that people looking for cheap car insurance kept landing on his site, comparethemeerkat.com. ‘Simples.’
The results arrived absurdly fast. Every objective set for twelve months was hit within nine weeks. Cost per acquisition fell by 73%. Spontaneous brand awareness nearly tripled, from 20% to 59%. The site climbed from the 16th most-visited UK insurance website to 4th, and sales doubled. By 2010, market share was up 76% while some rivals lost as much as 30%. Orlov’s ‘autobiography’ outsold Tony Blair’s memoirs at Christmas 2010, shifting over 500,000 copies.
Why it worked
Price comparison is a rational, low-interest, zero-loyalty category. Everyone competed on the same claim: save money. Compare the Market stopped competing on the claim entirely and competed on memory instead. When every product is identical, the brand people remember at renewal time wins.
Advertising researchers call Orlov a ‘fluent device’: a recurring character or scenario that makes every ad instantly recognisable and lets 17 years of media spend accumulate into one memory rather than scatter across forgotten campaigns. Each new ad does not start from zero. It makes a deposit into an account the last ad opened.
And the meerkat was not a random piece of whimsy. It was anchored in a genuine business problem, the cost of the word ‘market’, which gave the silliness a logic the audience could retell. People did not just remember the ads. They explained them to each other.
The principle
In a category where every competitor makes the same claim, distinctiveness beats persuasion. Being remembered matters more than being argued for. A consistent character, phrase or visual style compounds like interest; a new campaign every year spends like cash.
Steal this
You do not need a CGI meerkat. You need something recognisable that you refuse to abandon.
Audit your category’s sameness. Write down the claims every competitor makes. Cheapest, friendliest, most reliable. Anything on that list cannot make you memorable, because it is already wallpaper.
Create one distinctive asset you can own. A character, a colour, a phrase, a mascot, a recurring format. Ask: if we removed our logo, would anyone know this was us? If not, keep working.
Look for cheap adjacencies. The meerkat existed because ‘meerkat’ clicks cost pennies while ‘market’ clicks cost pounds. Check what your customers search for, and whether a misspelling, nickname or adjacent term is cheaper ground you could own.
Commit for years, not quarters. The meerkat is still running 17 years on. Distinctive assets only compound if you resist the itch to refresh them every time the team gets bored. Boredom inside the business usually means it is just starting to work outside it.
Sources & further reading
- APG Creative Strategy Awards: the meerkat campaign · Campaign
- Compare the Meerkat · Wikipedia
- VCCP extends meerkat campaign · The Drum
The Whito verdict
A 73% drop in acquisition costs did not come from a better price or a better product. It came from being the only brand in the category anyone could actually remember. The meerkat looks like a creative gamble, but it was built on a media insight, executed with total consistency, and left alone long enough to compound.
The small business translation: stop rewriting your message and start repeating it. Distinctiveness is a savings account. Most businesses keep withdrawing before the interest arrives.
Scale Stage
Would anyone recognise your marketing without the logo?
Get a free Growth Report and find out whether your business has a distinctive asset, or just a list of claims everyone else makes too.
Frequently asked questions
Why did Compare the Market invent a meerkat?
Partly as a media-buying hack: the keyword ‘market’ was one of the most expensive in UK paid search, while ‘meerkat’ cost pennies. VCCP built the character Aleksandr Orlov around the confusion between comparethemarket.com and comparethemeerkat.com, launching on TV in January 2009.
What results did the meerkat campaign achieve?
Cost per acquisition fell 73%, spontaneous awareness rose from 20% to 59%, and all twelve-month objectives were hit within nine weeks. The site climbed from 16th to 4th most-visited UK insurance website, sales doubled, and the character’s autobiography sold over 500,000 copies.
What can a small business learn from the meerkat?
In categories where everyone makes the same claims, being remembered beats being argued for. Create one distinctive asset, a character, phrase, colour or format, and repeat it for years. Consistency compounds; constant rebranding resets you to zero.
