Meerkovo

BRIEF

Compare The Market is an insurance comparison service. Their advertising uses meerkat characters that are adored by the UK public. They have a legion of fans: Aleksandr sold more copies of his biography then Cheryl Cole or Tony Blair.

How can we keep these fans deeply engaged and enable conversations with the brand?

IDEA

Give fans unprecedented access to the world of Meerkats.

Welcome to Meerkovo. A virtual Meerkat village across web, social and mobile.

You’ll meet new characters, visit their homes, play games, learn about their ways of life, and earn real-world rewards.

The website is tied into the purchase experience. When you buy an insurance product from CompareTheMarket.com, you unlock new areas of Meerkovo. You’ll meet new characters, watch a personalised meerkat parade in your honour and receive your very own meerkat toy.

To make Meerkovo look authentic, we used real world locations which were dressed with ‘Meerkat brands’. These environments were then enhanced by matte painting. The village map was hand-painted on an 8-metre canvas.

RESULTS

• 330,000 visitors in the first month
• 21,000 in one day
• Traffic to comparethemarket.com doubled to more than 1 million per month

MY ROLE

Creative Direction, concept, art direction

CREDITS

Creative Directior: Rodrigo Sobral
Project Director: Joel Godfrey
Art Director: Rodrigo Sobral
Copywriter: Haydn Kerr, Marcus Efstratiou
Designer: Rob Rostek, Yvonne Lau
Project Manager: Anna Persson
Technical Manager: Tony Volpe
Developer: Jason Hepi, George Cordal, Alan Killip, Philip Bulley, Rimas Krivickas, Andrew Edwards, Richard Cookson
UX: Gavin O’Carrol
Sound Design: Stuart Miller Read Less