Pre-defaced GoCompare billboards prove popular as brand aim to kill off ‘irritating’ character

By Jonathan O'Connor on Monday, July 2, 2012

Am I being cynical or is this a great example of PR?

Gio from the really annoying Go Compare adverts has been in the public eye for some time. Go Compare look like they have come up with a new way of catching your eye with pre-defaced billboards.

It’s a great piece of advertising because it’s getting huge social media traffic. People up and down the country are tweeting photos of the same billboard advert, thinking their town has the most ingenious yobs around.

UPDATE

Rich here, jumping in on Jonathan’s post rather than write a new one.

The 60-second TV ad will feature an assassin taking aim at the singer with a bazooka, according to CampaignLive, leaving a crater where he was standing, ending with the new strapline, “GoCompare.com: Saving the nation.”

The billboards are essentially a teaser campaign, said by the company to be a response to the nation’s dislike for the character – Marketing held a poll in 2009 of the most irritating ads, which was topped by GoCompare, when as well as that, it’s a prominent and seemingly snarling switch-up from new ad agency Dare, having been awarded the £28m account in February.

More of the ‘defaced’ billboards below:

BACKGROUND

It was also pointed out on Twitter that this isn’t the first time a brand character has been killed off successfully – last year, M&C Saatchi did something similarly brilliant (or brilliantly similar, depending upon how you look at it) with Mr Delivery, a South African food delivery brand. Thanks to Linsky Istatkova for tweeting with it.

Watch the case study video ‘Fire the Chef’ here: