The Meerkats Head for Dinner in Latest Compare The Market Ads

Compare the Market today announces the launch of its most generous reward proposition to date, Meerkat Meals, with a 360-marketing campaign created by VCCP.

Following the success of Meerkat Movies, the brand-new bespoke offering, Meerkat Meals; which is powered by tastecard will reward customers with 2-for-1 meals at thousands of restaurants up and down the country for an entire year. Restaurants already signed up include Zizzi’s, Strada, Handmade Burger Co, Bella Italia, Belgo, La Tasca, Pizza Hut, Prezzo, Ask Italian, Frankie & Benny’s, Chiquitos, Coast to Coast and Café Rouge, as well as over a thousand independents.

The latest campaign airs on TV for the first time today during Coronation Street on ITV and Love Island on ITV2.

Ongoing support includes a comprehensive through-the-line marketing campaign utilising PR, social, digital, DOOH, radio and experiential to introduce Meerkat Meals. 

A series of three, 30” adverts unveiling Meerkat Meals will see the meerkats immersed in a series of dining out moments. Each advert will see Aleksandr and Sergei characteristically gatecrash distinctive restaurant occasions - including a date, a friend’s diner and a birthday party - to remind diners of the new 2-for1 reward.

The films were created by Darren Bailes, Matt Lloyd, Javier Romartinez and Stephen Misir at VCCP, directed by Dave Scanlon and produced by Andy Leahy. The campaign media plan has been led and designed by Wavemaker. 

In addition to a year’s membership of Meerkat Meals, customers will still receive the existing Meerkat Movies offer which will continue to benefit from multi-channel promotion. Furthermore, all existing Compare the Market customers - over six million of them – will automatically receive Meerkat Meals from today. Over the last three years, Meerkat Movies has rewarded customers with over 10 million free cinema tickets, saving the UK £74,200,000[1], and the app has been downloaded over three and a half million times.

Anyone who switches energy or buys a qualifying product through Compare the Market will be able to dine out as many times as they like for breakfast, lunch and dinner from Sunday to Thursday for a whole year*. By presenting their unique membership details via the Meerkat app at the point of payment, up to six diners can benefit from 2-for-1 on starters, mains and desserts during each visit.

Both Meerkat Movies and Meerkat Meals will be available to use through the revamped Meerkat app, now including geo-location capabilities so users can see which restaurants and cinemas are nearby to take advantage of each 2-for-1 reward.

Mark Vile, chief marketing officer at Compare the Market said: “Meerkat Meals is a huge step-change for our brand and we believe it will be real-game changer for customers as well as the hospitality industry. We wanted to produce a campaign highlighting the breadth and generosity of our most ambitious rewards scheme to date, which sees people benefiting from Meerkat Meals in addition to Meerkat Movies.

“We have a long history of rewarding our customers and are confident Meerkat Meals will go a long way to saving millions of people even more money while also enjoying the moments that matter with their friends and family.”

The pending arrival of Meerkat Meals was originally teased with a tongue-in-cheek piece of content, teaming up with renowned voice-over artist, Redd Pepper, the voice of countless entertainment trailers such The Blair Witch Project and Boogie Nights. Within the 90 second video, Redd attempts to announce the launch of Meerkat Meals as “coming soon”, however his desire to ramp up the drama gets in the way of the facts leaving the exasperated sound engineer to correct Redd’s constant slip-ups.