Confused.com CMO says James Corden ads are delivering the strongest results in a decade as new spot launches
Confused.com’s marketing boss has revealed the next ad in the series featuring James Corden, this time showing the star being ripped off by a money-grabbing mechanic.
The ‘Big Win’ campaign launches next week and marks the sixth advert that Corden has fronted since he replaced the long-running ‘Brian the Robot’ in 2016.
Chief brand officer Paul Troy, who orchestrated the shift in strategy with his arrival at the business in 2015, said that Corden is delivering the results it needs to remain competitive in the overcrowded market.
“During the ‘Brian era’ there was a decade of decline and we’ve now had two years of growing the business [with Corden],” Troy told The Drum.
“We’re now seeing if we ask people what brand is for drivers, we’re getting much higher registration from competition. It’s between meerkats [Comparethemarket], opera singers [Go Compare] and a Skeletor thing [Money Supermarket]. We’re beginning to separate from the pack.”
According to its results for the first half of 2017, revenue for the comparison site grew to £72.5m, up from £64.0m in the same period in 2016.
But when it comes to brand impact, the results are less clear. According to research from Soundout, which tracks ad engagement, one of the last Brian the Robot adverts performed much the same as the last Corden-fronted ad, the Sheep Whisperer. Overall, it found there is just a few percentage points differences in the popularity of Corden versus Brian across its key ‘young drivers’ demographic.
Troy is hoping this latest execution will have the biggest impact yet. Created by agency partner of two years Karmarama, the Las Vegas advert is the most expensive production to date and though it was initially planned to run in March, Troy said there was too much excitement in the team to hold longer.
“This is like Apollo 13 – our finest hour. This is the big scale production and will see us through for a number of months now.”
The creative will be rolled out across national press, radio, social media, display advertising, email and PPC. It also includes sponsorship of Drivetime across the Heart Network and utilising Twitter First View to broadcast a 30-second social cut of the creative to all UK users.
Nik Studzinski, chief creative officer at Karmarama, added: “The latest chapter in our campaign for Confused.com aims to show how its customers can win big. And not just ‘big’ but 'Vegas big’."