Adwatch (Oct 12) - Top 20 recall: Moneysupermarket

The price-comparison site has struck back in the battle to be memorable.

skip to table

Tuvalu is a beautiful Polynesian island nation located about halfway between Hawaii and Australia. Small and sparsely populated, its annual GDP is about the same as the amount that moneysupermarket.com spends on media per year (about $31m, according to the CIA and Taylor Nelson, respectively).

Add all the 'big four' insurance aggregators together, and you get a figure closer to the GDP of Morocco or Vietnam. All to make us remember their URL first, all to get their logo closest to the mouse fingers of the begrudging motorist.

Never in the history of human communication has so much been paid by so many for so little. Into this shrill category comes this, the second instalment of Moneysupermarket's campaign 'You're so Moneysupermarket'.

Will it be able to compete with the cuteness of those furry Russian mammals, the nerve-jangling repetitiveness of Gio Compario, or the sub-X Factor yodelling of Confused.com?

Things are all set up for this ad to stand out and then worm in. It has turned the daft-o-meter way up past 11.

What with the inter-primate sex, what with Sir David Attenborough recast as Dagenham Dave, what with him out-silverbacking Guy the Gorilla while jacked up on saved cash and discount bananas, what with the end-line so elegantly purloined from Swingers and all.

Are we not entertained? Damn right we are.

However, a kind of exhausted sadness remains, an over-stimulated, enervated sense of emptiness. For all the mind-boggling budgets, advertising in this category has nothing much to say.

This is a market that provides thin pickings for distinctive messages, positionings or brands. Beneath the jingles and the jungles, it feels like a battle between one server farm and the next. All thoughts of depth or meaning are forgotten in the unseemly rush to make us remember.

Yet at least this ad sides with the angels in attempting, as with 'Meerkat', to be both memorable and likeable. A mercy in a category where others take the Millwall strategy: 'No one likes us, we don't care.'

It is an idea with less innate insanity and depth than the meerkat. It therefore has to work harder in execution than the born-bonkers Aleksandr Orlov, but it potentially has more longevity. I struggle to see where Comparethemarket can go in its stark post-fluffy toy universe.

As for Moneysupermarket.com, it has sound, it has some simian fury, but like its competitors, it doesn't much care if it is signifying nothing.

Adwatch (October 12): Top 20 recall
Latest Oct-05 Brand Agency/ TV Buyer Recall
rank       %
1 (–)

Moneysuper
market.
com 

Mother/
MediaCom
45
2 (–) Autoglass  Tellyville/
Starcom
43
3 (–) Sensodyne 

Grey London/
MediaCom

40
4 (–) Wickes  MWO/MEC 39
5 -3 Wonga.
com
 
Albion London/
PHD
37
6= -4 DFS  Uber/
MediaCom
36
6= (–) British
Gas
 
CHI & Partners/
Carat
36
8= (–) Ryvita  Grey London/
ZenithOptimedia
35
8= (–) McDonald's  Leo Burnett/
OMD UK
35
10 (–) Marks &
Spencer
 
RKCR Y&R/
Walker Media
34
11= (–) Lloyds
TSB
 
RKCR Y&R/
MEC
33
11= (–) Morrisons  DLKW Lowe/
MEC
33
13= -10 Asda  Saatchi & Saatchi/
Carat
29
13= (–) Vodafone  Bartle Bogle Hegarty
/OMD UK
29
15 (–) Febreze  Grey Düsseldorf/
Starcom
26
16= (–) L'Oreal –
Volume
Million
Lashes
 
McCann Erickson/
ZenithOptimedia
25
16= (–) Vanish Oxi
Action
 
Euro RSCG London/
ZenithOptimedia
25
16= (–) TK Maxx  In-house/
Mindshare
25
16= (–) Currys/
PC World
 
M&C Saatchi/
Walker Media
25
20 (–) Rachel's
Organic
 
HMDG/
ZenithOptimedia
23

You have

[DAYS_LEFT] Days left

of your free trial

Subscribe now

Get a team licence 

 Give your teams unrestricted access to in-depth editorial analysis, breaking news and premium reports with a bespoke subscription to 北京赛车pk10.

Find out more

Market Reports

Get unprecedented new-business intelligence with access to 北京赛车pk10’s new Market Reports.

Find out more

Looking for a new job?

Get the latest creative jobs in advertising, media, marketing and digital delivered directly to your inbox each day.

Create an Alert Now