Technically, this?series of TV adverts?shouldn’t feature in ‘Badvertising’.
Technically, it’s a very successful and clever campaign carried out with the surgical precision that a smartarse meerkat in scrubs?with an?indeterminable accent would be proud of. No other commercial?has quite taken advantage of social media so well before and it’s a catchphrase, voice, image and jingle that sticks around in the mind.?Well done ‘Aleksandr‘.
Technically, however, it is also the most cynical, irritating and twee dirge that buffers every 15 minutes of commercial television that we watch.
And come on, admit it… You like it don’t you? Oh, how you laugh when the little animated (and it is animated – it’s not real…) meerkat?appears, whoring car insurance by?pretending that he’s not trying to whore car insurance. “Oh”, he says, “Oh, dur-dur-dur-dur-dur, car insurance. Yadda yadda”. Or whatever he says.?YOU’RE COMPLICIT IN THIS!
So successful is the campaign that it has its own merchandising range. It’s?actually an advertising campaign that the public are happy to pay to be a part of. Those Nathan Barley ad boys have sat around a table of sushi and ‘mind-mapped’ and ‘blue sky’ thought of??up a?cutesy little fluffy thing, given it a sub-Borat accent, put it in a dressing gown and made millions from it. Made millions from?anyone?sad enough to?throw coins at keyrings, toys and shirts that promote a car bloody insurance bloody comparison bloody website. Just as crap robots sold mashed potato, camp meercats sell insurance. Simples.
Have you ever even tried to compare meerkats? It’s pointless. They’re ugly and they?all look the same. Sure, some meerkats might be bigger than others or?might?offer a courtesy meerkat in the event of?an accident??but still…
I mean it should be patently obvious to all car insurance comparison websites or indeed anyone advertising on television, that the best way to do this is to employ moustachioed, clinically obese?tenors to bellow painfully catchy tunes?into the faces of bemused and frightened?strangers.
Badvertising: Sponsored by Go Compare.com
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