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I have just spent the last half an hour comparing meerkats. I am now au fait with the difference between Dartskat (regularly spotted in his local pub, the Queasy Mongoose) and the frankly improbable Spelunkat (loves the spiritualism of the Bangkok dance scenes and has taken 'sacred vow of the boogie'). The trouble is, none of this is getting me any nearer to buying cheap car insurance.

This may be the only problem with the runaway success of Aleksandr Orlov, the threadbare mammal who held a top spot in the Christmas 2010 non-fiction bestseller lists with his autobiography The Simples Life.

His adverts were recently named the most popular of last year by market research consultancy Nielsen. The Russian-speaking meerkat has almost 770,000 'likes' on Facebook and more than 44,000 followers hanging on to his every tweet. He has struck a chord with the public, but is his carefully constructed persona driving sales?

In case you've been hiding in your burrow for the last few months, Orlov has been the front man of a price comparison site called ComparetheMarket since January 2009. Within one month, his unique approach to promoting financial services had helped to drive a 400 per cent increase in unique users to Comparethemarket.com from 218,000 visitors in February 2008 to 1.1 million in February 2009.

Like its rivals, the site makes money by allowing customers to find the cheapest price for a range of financial services products. The sites have been around for years, but have started taking increasing amounts of our screen time in an attempt to differentiate one brand from another.

'As most companies are a few thousand people in an out of town office with a functional website and a call centre, the television advertising creates the brand,' explains Tony Langham, chief executive of financial services public relations firm Lansons Communications. 'The public clearly trust the industry to provide it to a high and consistent standard - making it very close to being a commodity product, hence the intense focus on brand.'

For Orlov is not alone. The market for kooky financial services characters must be near saturation point - amongst the comparison sites, there is the delightful Gio Compario - a fake Italian opera singer with a catchy tune about insurance - and the much-less well-known Cara from Confused.com (blue stripy shirt, sticking up hair). Then there is the Churchill dog, who is squarely aiming himself at the family market by advertising on children's morning television.

'Children will pester their parents to go onto the Churchill website or to buy them a Churchill dog as a cuddly toy. This ensures that the brand is continuously on display and always at the front of people's minds,' says Kitty Parry, founder of communications agency Templars.

In fact, Churchill took this even further by starring in a series of pantomimes this year. Audience members could get two tickets for the price of one if they informed Royal Bank of Scotland, which owns the brand, when their motor and home insurance was up for renewal. Experts say that the reason that financial services companies excel at this sort of branding is that what they are selling is essentially dull and difficult to comprehend.

The power of recall

'Insurance companies are selling something people don't understand. One is very similar to another, so in the end it is all about recall,' says Rana Reeves, founder of marketing agency John Doe Communications. 'If you're going to pick something, why not pick the one your kids like?'

It is not a new phenomenon, but what has changed since the days of the NatWest piggies, Mr Bradford & Mr Bingley and the Griffin from the Midland Bank ads, is the multiple platforms where these characters can be fleshed out. They become personalities on social networking sites, host quizzes and post tweets. For example, Churchill the insurance dog was recently 'trying to stop dreaming about his favourite snack..sausage sandwiches', while Aleksandr Orlov exhorted people to twin the Midlands town of Meerkat Harborough with his home village of Meerkovo.

None of this has anything to do with insurance, so does it make profit? Yes, says Robin Jaffray, strategic planning director at creative agency Inferno. 'The meerkat is a lovable character, with a personality that suits Facebook and Twitter, we like spending time with him and hearing the tales he tells whilst charmingly mangling the English language,' argues Jaffray. 'Surely the best testament to his success is his catchphrase 'simples' entering the vernacular, now commonly posted on status updates and scribbled on pub blackboards. British people like to like their advertising.'

Richard Sunderland, founder of branding agency Heavenly, says that the financial services brands are trying to introduce 'magic' into the traditional 'logic' of financial services.

'Understanding that people usually consider three companies for an insurance quote or a mortgage loan et cetera, the question was How do I get on the list? The answer was either be the biggest, have a different product (very difficult) or get an emotional brand that people engage with,' he says.

Our love of the meerkat has been credited with vastly improving ComparetheMarket.com's recognition and sales. Indeed, the company itself crdedits Aleksandr with getting 800,000 extra customers. Parry says that one of the reasons for this is that the branding of the meerkat site is consistent without being pushy.

'People go on the site without feeling like they are being sold to,' she says. There is the immediate option of which site you go to, plus this page and the Meerkat site are branded exactly the same as Comparethemarket.com, with plenty of reminders to visit the main site and if they do it is not a huge leap.

'But, for those who really have come for fun and want to stay on ComparetheMeerkat, they can stay and play at comparing meerkats and learn more about Aleksandr without feeling like they are being sold to.'

However, opera singer Gio Compario, despite being branded one of the most irritating adverts on television, may have done even more for rival Gocompare. Brand recognition has improved by 450 per cent since the Welshman who plays him burst onto our screens in August 2009.

Nick Hall, head of marketing at Gocompare, said that the opera singer has brought them 60 per cent more customers. 'Gio has given us unique, memorable qualities that help differentiate the Gocompare brand,' he says. 'It's fair to say that Gio Compario has become one of the most recognisable and talked about figures on British television, whether you're an opera fan or not he has got people talking about us on TV, in the press and online. The campaign continues to drive enormous levels of brand awareness.'

Inferno's Jaffray says that, despite this, people do not like the adverts. 'Gio Compario ads wear-out really quickly. The agency is having to write and shoot scripts, get them on- and off-air, and on to the next one quickly, to stop us lashing out at our TVs every time their annoying character pops up,' he says. 'Likeable ads are more effective.'

But despite the fact there is no opportunity to buy a cuddly Gio toy, it seems consumers remember him just as well as Orlov, and there may be little that the meerkats can do about that.

John Doe's Reeves says that despite intense social networking campaigns, these kooky brands can Facebook all they like, but can only influence us up to a point. 'Affinity based on a dog and a meerkat is good but it can only go so far - once it stops making customers choose that brand then the benefits stop,' he says.

Chris Delahunty, founder of digital media agency MMK Media, who previously created social media campaigns for Virgin Money, claims the real issue with Confused.com and Gocompare is that the campaigns are annoying. They may be promoting brand awareness but, as he points out, if people are posting on Facebook that they hate the adverts then it is unlikely this will translate into sales.

He believes that ComparetheMeerkat has been the most successful of all the price comparison sites' campaigns. It no longer matters whether consumers make an explicit link between the meerkat and ComparetheMarket, it has been established in the public consciousness. It has moved from an advertising campaign to top up brand awareness to a pure brand advert.

Hitting the right notes

Langham says that though the meerkat is working, it risks alienating the public. 'Deepening the character is sensible, but it could backfire if it misses the public mood - after all people love the meerkat, but they know he's not real. They could, of course, push it too far.'

Lansons' client, Moneysupermarket, has been one of the many forced to respond to the meerkat campaign. It has started using former deputy prime minister John Prescott in its advertising, as well as comedian Omid Djalili. However, the business argues that it wants to be known as a serious brand, offering quality editorial content.

'An important long-term strategy is to develop content that is useful to people and guides them in their decision making. Over time this could lead to a three-dimensional brand, where some of the character only brands could be very limited,' says Langham. At present, however, it seems impossible to compete in the financial services market without some kind of clever anthropomorphised animal or fake persona.

Confused.com told The Guardian early last year that it was eschewing character-based branding in favour of a simple focus on customers and the savings they could make. However, by September it had found it prudent to develop Cara, its own character, who has a Facebook page, a blog, and a singing career. This followed a ten per cent fall in revenue between January to June 2010, and a five per cent decline in market share in the year to June 2010.

The change of strategy suggests that the string of cuddly financial services characters who dream about sausage sandwiches and create spin-off cuddly toys are here to stay, at least for a while.

'Many people find Gio Compario, Aleksandr and Churchill irritating but they have had demonstrable success in terms of driving brand awareness, increasing hits to websites and ultimately increasing sales,' says Parry. 'They all drive conversation - whether it's to be rude about the character or laugh at them, it is this that brings a brand into the community, which is so powerful when it comes to choosing a brand to go with at the time of purchase.'

In other words, buying insurance is not that exciting. So if comparing meerkats makes it seem so, people will be delighted to go with it, until they get fed up. Whether Orlov will find it so Simples to dominate the market in the long term may be another matter.

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