Attack of the copy (meer)kat

Why has Comparethemarket.com partnered with Renault? Oh no, wait, it’s a Renault ad that features meerkats and has nothing to do with comparing prices.

The ad is for Renault’s 4×4 Koleos model, which is apparently known as the “King of the Savannah”, and sees a group of meerkats don black tie attire to honour the vehicle.

Renault’s is a global ad campaign, running in a number of territories including Germany, Belgium, Spain, Algeria, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic but a spokeswoman for the ad agency French agency Publicis Conseil that created it says it’s “not impossible that it will air in the UK later”.

I hope that Renault is smart enough not to run this campaign in the UK.

Comparethemarket.com has so ingrained its association with cute anthropomorphic meerkats into the British psyche, that any other brand doing so, looks at best unoriginal, and at worst a copy (meer)cat. Sorry.

The award winning, VCCP created ad for Comparethemarket, starring the meerkat Aleksandr and a host of other furry friends, can’t have escaped the attention of the European ad world and so while Publicis Conseil calls the choice of meerkats in the ad campaign “inventive” and the TV ad “unique”, it looks like a rip off to me.