Gocompare treats viewers to the gift of silence at Christmas

The new TV ad launching on Christmas Day pays homage to the silent movie era. It will be seen as a Christmas gift to many viewers as the opera singing brand mascot Compairo will not be singing his usual Gocompare theme tune.

The black and white ad, created in-house, is launching across national TV channels. It features Compario and a band of hapless policemen racing to the aid of a couple whose car is teetering over the edge of a ravine.

Captions and a piano accompaniment typical of the silent movie era complete the ad. Shot in Cape Town, the creative concept was developed by Siân and Chris Wilkins. 

One Step Beyond is the production company involved in making the advert and Graham Rose is the director. Mediaedge:cia (MEC) handle Gocompare.com’s media buying.

Nick Hall, head of marketing at Gocompare.com, said: "We’re giving viewers a break from Gio's amazing voice in the TV adverts this Christmas with our salute to the silent movies.

"We've had a brilliant response to the latest series of film related ads and 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 this campaign has made a massive difference in terms of brand awareness and recall and that has translated directly to a big uplift in site traffic."

Compario, who was voted adland's most "irritating character" in 2009 is currently making a charge for the Christmas number one spot with his own very special version of 'Santa Claus is coming to town' in aid of the Teenage Cancer Trust.

He has been credited with driving over a 60% increase in quote volumes for Gocompare.com since he was first introduced in August 2009 and has boosted brand awareness by more than 450%, according to Conquest's brand health monitor

This article was first published on campaignlive.co.uk