Confused.com Advertising to Introduce “Confucius” Character

The big insurance comparison website, Confused.com, has announced that it is to try out a new character in their above-the-line advertising campaigns. In an attempt to stand out from the crowd, they’re looking to introduce a character to their message, called “Confucius”.

Named after a Chinese philosopher – who will now be turning in his grave – the character has been developed by Confused’s agency, Farm. Those up North will see the early tests and assuming a good reception, Confused will roll out the Confucius character to the rest of the UK shortly afterwards.

What should we make of the new Confused character?

First things first, credit where credit is due …Confused (and MoneySupermarket for that matter) have both made good progress in their approach to customers in recent months. Improved comparison results pages, richer content, increased policy data and a general approach to understand the customer rather than treating their tools like a pipe, through which people were simply numbers.

And the recent Confused.com campaign seems to reflect this. Maintaining the image of ‘cheap’ in their creative but introducing their position on customer focus, it’s fair to say these ads carry some merit …if only for getting the repetitive and patronising cardboard cut outs off my TV!

But now they’re heading into the world of characters – with the express aim, in their own words, to “stand out from the crowd”! Has Confused not noticed their insurance partner campaigns? Elephant’s Trunky character, Direct Line’s red telephone, Admiral’s charming pirate(!), the Esure trannies, the Belarusian Meerkat, uSwitch’s James Brown gospel superstar and, of course, Churchill the non-political nodding dog.

Tom Bennett’s (Marketing Director at Confused.com) exact words were: “There is so much noise in the sector, we need to stand out from our rivals.” …and you were so close to getting it right too!! Now your new ‘worldly-wise’ and ‘fun but not patronising’ character is going to undo any good work laid down over the last few weeks. And when did ‘fun’ ever become synonymous with ‘patronising’ in the first place?

Your thoughts please ‘Viewers of the Inside’ – a particularly low-techie post for some of the executive types out there who unknowingly tell us they read this wonderful blog, but simply lurk without posting