Comparethemarket.com - Sergei

Aleksandr Orlov shot to fame as the face of comparethemeerkat.com, the website he claims is consistently confused with price-comparison site comparethemarket.com, much to his annoyance.

In this third spot in the acclaimed campaign by ad agency VCCP, Aleksandr reinforces the message by introducing his friend Sergei, comparethemeerkat.com's head of IT. Aleksandr bemoans the fact that people keep overloading his server, giving Sergei 'nervous meltdown', he tells viewers.

The challenge for this phase of the campaign was to create an ad that improved brand recall and increased the number of drivers that actively searched for comparethemarket.com by name.

'We identified name recall as the number-one thing to address,' says Mark Vile, director of marketing at comparethemarket.com.

'The success of the first ads meant we had to think carefully about how to keep it fresh. We felt that Sergei was a good contrast to the over-exuberance of Aleksandr,' he adds.

'Our visits increased 100% year on year and have remained at that level since the campaign started.'

Aleksandr and Sergei proved a winner with the judges, with the ad beating Toyota's 'Unveiled' to the Thinkboxes' top spot.

The Toyota work promotes four of its models - in the ads, the skin of each car acts as a dustsheet that is whisked off to reveal the next car underneath.

Third place in the April Thinkboxes went to J20's 'A horse called Cynthia', which cleverly mixes dialogue with visuals.

‘Our visits increased 100 per cent year on year and have remained at that level since the campaign started.’

Mark Vile
Marketing director
comparethemarket.com

Ad info

• Client Mark Vile, Director of Marketing, comparethemarket.com
• Brief Continue to clear up the 'confusion' between the brand and comparethemeerkat.com
• Ad Agency VCCP
• Creative Team Darren Bailes, Steve Vranakis, Matt Lloyd, Rich Connell, Clem Woodward
• Media Agency Zed Media

Other ads on the podium

Toyota - Unveiled

With the car industry in turmoil, Toyota has moved to reinforce its range with the launch of four new models - and this 40-second TV commercial is running as part of a fully integrated communications campaign that includes national and regional press, websites, direct marketing and point of sale. In a clever film directed by Brett Foraker, the skin of each car becomes a dust sheet that can be whisked off, revealing another model below. A family unveils its seven-seat Verso; football-playing young adults unveil the IQ; a young couple with a dog uncovers the Urban Cruiser; and a man in a suit, carrying flowers, unveils the Avensis. Life-like cloth wraps and sophisticated post-production dovetail to bring a new twist to this classic special effects technique, rendered in an uninterrupted, live-action sweep of the camera. As the endline has it: "Unveiling four new Toyotas with Toyota Optimal Drive as standard."

J20 - A Horse Called Cynthia

The J20 proposition is that when you take two fruits and mix them together, you have something infinitely more exciting - and the commercials in this campaign are a playful take on that concept, taking two scenes from recognised film genres and swapping the soundtracks round. In the ad featured here, the double entendres are drawn from a scene featuring a saddle-sore cowboy talking to his horse ("I love you Cynthia… your eyes, your nose, your chestnut hair") juxtaposed with a Merchant Ivory-style Edwardian scenario, with an upper-class young man in a white suit proposing to a demure young lady in a long dress and a parasol. "That was a hell of a ride," he says. She simply neighs. In another execution, a swim-suited couple flirt by the poolside of a Texan mansion and this is paired with a scene at a Southern filling station. The tagline is: "It's metter to bix things up."

Also shortlisted for April 2009

888ladies.com - Calendar

This latest execution in 888.com's comedic "bingo superstars" campaign shows Jenny, a model with slightly less than glamorous credentials, participating selflessly ("I'm not doing this for me… I'm doing this for bingo") in a shoot for a glossy, bingo-themed wall calendar. Previous executions have featured a tone-deaf girl recording a single and another wannabe pop star making a pop video with "big bouncing bingo balls". This film develops a succession of cringeworthy moments (and costume changes, notably a wonderful gold lamé catsuit) including a December snow scene where Jenny is asked to tease a stuffed polar bear; and June's tennis-themed scenario where the big bouncing balls make another appearance. The campaign seeks to help 888ladies keep its title as the fastest-growing bingo site by getting more women online to chat and play bingo on the site.

Pot Noodle - Kebablab

This latest ad for Pot Noodle celebrates the bringing together of Britain's favourite snack and another of the UK's culinary delights - the kebab. The result is celebrated in an all-singing, all-dancing spot fronted by the brand's in-house cheerleading duo, Steve and Digger. They belt out a pastiche of a Justin Timberlake-style R&B track explaining how they combined doner kebab and Pot Noodle in their "lab" to produce new doner kebab flavour Pot Noodle - and it contains the unforgettable image of a big chunky bloke gyrating in a black mini dress. The ad continues a series of music-themed initiatives by the brand, including Pot Noodle: The Musical, which ran on the Edinburgh Festival Fringe last year, and a spoof of Meat Loaf's Bat Out Of Hell. The new flavour extends the range, which has seen the addition of lamb hotpot, tikka masala and chicken satay in recent years.