GoCompare extends relationship with Hearts & Science

The comparison website has retained Omnicom agency.

GoCompare's long-term brand mascot Gio Compario
GoCompare's long-term brand mascot Gio Compario

GoCompare will continue working with Omnicom’s Hearts & Science UK for a further three years. The extension was agreed without a pitch.

The agency will handle all above-the-line activity, including radio and TV broadcast, press, out of home, sponsorships and digital video.

GoCompare – which introduced the opera tenor Gio Compario to British TV screens – is previously thought to have spent around £40 million in annual media billings. However, its media spend could be reviewed by new owner Future, which acquired the business last year.

Recently, GoCompare’s rival Confused.com moved its media account to Zenith, while competitor Comparethemarket’s media review is at an advanced stage.

Hearts & Science has worked with GoCompare since 2019, when it picked up the business from Carat following a review that began in 2018.

In September, the agency worked with GoCompare to develop the UK’s “first ever” interactive, audience-participation game show in the ad breaks of ITV's Family Fortunes.

In the TV spots, produced by Thames TV, Family Fortunes host Gino D’Acampo welcomed Gio Compario to compete against the actor who plays him, Wynne Evans (who is a tenor in real life), in a special version of the game show.

“We’re really pleased to be continuing our relationship with Hearts & Science. Since we started working with the team in 2019, they’ve proved time and again that they can come up with big ideas and then translate them into successful activations,” GoCompare director of brand and campaigns Paul Rogers said.

For Hearts & Science, it is an important retention. GoCompare is the largest client for the Omnicom agency that specialises in using data and behavioural science to help brands connect with consumers.

“Together with GoCompare, we’ve developed some fantastic work over the last three years, most recently our industry-first partnership with Family Fortunes and ITV,” Hearts & Science MD Garrett O’Reilly said.

“It’s great to have a client that encourages us to challenge the conventions of what people would normally expect, to instead produce something new and exciting. It gives us a chance to push the boundaries of creativity and enables the brand to prove that it isn’t just content to sit still.”

Hearts & Science UK has a team of 85 people and manages annual media billings north of £100 million. Its clients include GoCompare, Audible, Ocado, Sanofi, Center Parcs, Yakult, Thames Water, Freeview, Sega and Hargreaves Lansdown, the FTSE 100 financial services business it won earlier this year.

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