Charts: Comparing the Meerkat: Dwell Time v Reach

January 14th, 2010 View Comments

Whether marketing gimmicks work or not, you cannot argue about the visual success of Alexander the Meerkat. However, given that Compare the Market is a online price comparison site it is clear their goal should be around increasing traffic and getting consumers to use the site for longer.

As much as the campaign has created a face for Compare the Market, I was thinking as to whether this has actually created a sizeable difference to site usage. I timed how long it took to complete an application across MoneySupermarket and Compare the Market (approximately 3mins was the average on both). I then took this average and looked at the latest trend figures from Comscore Media Metrics between November 2008 and November 2009. (Thank you Charlie Lockett – @charlielockett)

Media	Total Visits (000)			Average Minutes per Visit
Media	Nov-2008	Nov-2009	% Change	Nov-2008	Nov-2009	% Change
Total Internet : Total Audience	1,964,709	2,467,330	26	33.5	32.0	-4.4
MONEYSUPERMARKET.COM	6,669	3,907	-41	4.3	5.4	27.0
COMPARETHEMARKET.COM	329	936	184	0.9	0.7	-15.8

What seems clear to me is that brands need to start thinking about the effect on dwell time, not just volume. The effect on volume is clear from the Compare the Meerkat/Market campaign, yet disturbingly for the brand, people are spending less time on the site. VCCP would probably say that the combined dwell of consumers viewing the Meerkat across YouTube and Facebook equated to the time consumers spend on the MoneySupermarket site, but commercially it just doesn’t seem to have worked.

Insurance Blog

And this is now what confused are offering us: the "it pays to be confused" campaign. This is nothing compared to the meerkat or the opera singer. I've just added the video:
Watch the it pays to be confused advert
James Hankins

Whilst dwell time could be considered a bonus within sites with greater levels of content such as MSM, a site like CTM is positioned with one sole aim - "a greater number of quotes". A 300% increase in site traffic in a year is proof that the campaign has worked (coupled with insider knowledge that their quote volumes have kept up with this). Consumer behaviour in the aggregator market is based on getting a quick and easy response (see Confused.com's messaging), people don't want to hang around on these sites because they are functional and the product is low interest.

A better comparison would be against GoCompare who have a similar positioning to CTM. Both MSM and Confused are angling for a broader product share whilst MSM is actually after the Money Saving Expert crown. Not all brands want to be producers.

Another more relevant question is what VCCP do next with the Meerkat character. They have taken the brand from a distant 5th in the market to a very competitive 4th but this was with one of the most lauded campaigns in recent memory. To take the business further (and up the ladder above Confused, MSM and GoCo) and generate another step change is going to prove very difficult indeed especially as entering the content provision area has been hamstrung by the comedy element of the character.
mattbambow

Disagree and agree. The problem CTM have is that their average time of usage
doesn't even add up the speed of getting a quote. Therefore, although
driving volume is critical, driving usage through dwell time is massively
important for any brand. So whilst I agree its nice to have a greater number
of quotes, this can only be driven by users completing a process which takes
longer than 0.7 seconds.

2010/1/15 Disqus <>

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