Ooh Yes! Churchill The Car Insurance Dog Soft Toy Outsells The Meerkat
The holding company of Churchill Insurance, RBS, whose future remains in doubt, must be pleased as punch to learn that sales of the Churchill nodding dog soft toy were ten percent higher than those of rival car insurance comparison website Compare the Market over the christmas period, according to figures released today from the Association of British Toy Distributors.
Before they all go barking mad down at Churchill, it should be pointed out that the figures relate to sales of the bulldog stuffed toy against those of Alexsandr Orlov the Compare The Meerkat main character.
Alexsandr Meerkat was only available through Harrods and supplies were restricted according to Benja Katya who runs the online Meerkat Toy Store in partnership with Amazon.
She told Insurance Blogger. "The dog is now a part of British Culture and sales of the toy will enjoy longevity despite who owns the brand."
"Meerkat Toys are becoming more popular everyday and the interest is spreading globally. Much of this must be attributed to the success of the Compare The Meerkat TV and Internet Social Media Marketing Campaign. Ironically the Meerkat phenomena which started out as peculiarly British thing has spread as far as Namibia!"
The idea is seemple and not a new one either!
Remember the Nat West piggies?
With Social media here to stay as part of the Insurance Marketing mix, it looks like the Insurance logo soft toy spinoff market is a very lucrative source of extra income for cash strapped Insurance Marketing departments.
Insurance Blogger wonders what furry animal will be next to capture the hearts of the Britsh Car Insurance buying public?
You've got to admire the marketing people behind the Compare the Market - Compare the MeerKat campaign. They've tapped into a vein of the British love of wildlife, first made popular by the BBC's 'Meerkat Manor' programme, and made it their own. I am still amazed how the TV adverts turn the heads of all kids present every time the 'cuddly' little creatures appear on our screens.
However even with the long term success of the TV campaign and both the Compare the Market and Compare the Meerkat websites sitting in the top 50 of Google for car insurance, even the people at BISL, usually ahead of the game appear to have missed out on this one.......
You can now buy lovable Meerkat toys and dress them up like the famous Alexsandr Meerkat and play compare the meerkat all day long! Sure to be a massive hit with kids all over the UK this Christmas it looks like BISL may have missed the boat on this one!
With the number of meerkat characters created on Compare the Meerkat you would think this would be a massive opportunity to extend the marketing campaign by doing a joint venture with a soft toy manufacturer like TY! What's more http://twitter.com/Aleksandr_Orlov has over 29000 followers who they could immediately meerkat, sorry market to!!
So are BISL planning to bring out a branded Meerkat Insurance version of the soft toy!
They Sure are. Apparently an exclusive deal has been done with Harrods who will release a limited edition of 5000 Talking Aleksandr Meerkat soft toys and dolls this December. Latest word has it that pre-sales have already accounted for every meerkat soft toy they can produce! Meekat Mania is sweeping Britain!
The soft toy market is hardly 'soft', especially at Christmas, and incredibly these things become very collectible quickly and command huge prices on auction sites such as Ebay.
They could even give away a set of meerkat toys with every car insurance policy sold!
Unless you've been living in the Kalahari Desert since Xmas you could not have missed the Meerkat madness started over at Budget Insurance Services Ltd with their Compare the Meerkat TV Ad and marketing campaign.
While you've certainly got to admire the synchronicity of the Ad presentation and the trouble they went to set up the Meerkat site, what was once a rather endearing furry little creature from the plains of Namibia, that stood communally up to alert one another of danger - has been turned into a Gaylord, Narnian, Russian Mafia / Aristocratic rat in a dinner jacket selling car insurance.
To make matters worse, our three year old daughter 'Insurance Bloggette' has named the new kitten Meerkat, and I'm constantly bombarded with 'Daddy, Have you seen Meerkat?'
Yes I've seen the bloody Meerkat .... at least that pointy nosed Russian thing.... And that horrible thing that leaves me presents in the corner...
Anyway congratulations to Bex over at Bisl for a succesful campaign. We know its been successful because of the Alexa traffic ranking and the Google trends scores it has received. Oh yeah and we love Channel 4's 'Shameless' which it sponsors. Keep up the good work!
But take a look at this......
These are the Google Adwords served up for the query 'Meerkat'
It seeems those plagarising pariahs over at the other agglomerates and comparison sites, and the main rivals of Compare the Market, just couldn't keep their bidding hands off the keyword 'Meerkat'
Just how ridiculous has the world got when car insurance companies are spending millions on marketing to such keywords as MeerKat!
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