GO COMPARE! GO COMPARE!
God, I hated that advert when it first appeared. I had to admit though, it got the brand name into my head so it must have been doing something right - much more noticeable than the bland couple stepping into the computer screen that they used to use - at least I think that was them. The subsequent GoCompare ads, though, have slowly but steadily grown on me - now I might even go as far as to say they are quite enjoyable.
Whereas, exactly the opposite happened to me with the Meerkat ads. I thought the first one was absolutely brilliant and it certainly had good brand recognition but as they've gone on, I've found them more and more irritating. Incidentally, have you seen what happens when you Google "Compare The Meerkat"?
Ok, you probably can't see that very clearly, but the first name to come up is Moneysupermarket.com, followed by GoCompare, then Confused and eventually "Compare The Meerkat". I once had an interview with Moneysupermarket and they told me how they have people dedicated to getting them to the top in Internet Searches - it's obviously still working.
They also have people trying to get around Insurance Companies who do not want to be on Comparison Sites but this seems to be a losing battle, the introduction of squiggly letters that you have to manually type in seems to be a useful tool in this war.
But why wouldn't an Insurance Company want to be compared? Surely, if they were providing the best deal, then it would be to their advantage to appear on the sites. That's why I am particularly disappointed in two of my favourite comedians Paul Merton and Stephen Fry advertising Direct Line and specifically making the point that people should try them and not the Comparison Sites so "they don't have to pay commission". I do not believe for one minute that Direct Line are cheaper than the Comparison Site deals - when I used to compare them a few years back they certainly weren't. (As opposed to the 1990s when they were quite a bit cheaper than everyone else and they still seem to be hoping people are thinking of those times).
Similarly, Paul Whitehouse for Aviva, amusing ads, wrong message.
As it is, when my insurance expires on Halloween, I will have used Confused.com - despite their ads. They use actors pretending to be "real" people but these are real people you just want to hit.
I refuse to use Moneysupermarket because they didn't give me that job - I have no real beef with the other comparison sites but I'll stick with the one I know - I'm also very happy that I know they will protect me from another two of my bugbears, junk-mail and spam.
So that's what I'm gonna do, eh.
The problem with insurance companies is that you only find out how good they are when you have to claim.
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