Paul Rogers heads up the marketing team at Go.Compare, a U.K.-based financial services comparison website renowned for its unique and memorable opera-singing ads.
Since Go.Compare launched in 2006, we’ve built a robust brand presence, largely thanks to our mascot, Gio Compario, and our iconic opera-singing TV ads. However, the Gio ads have proved polarising with audiences — while they helped drive 97% awareness, they also had a “Marmite” effect that affected brand preference and customer choice.
To sustain engagement, drive long-term loyalty, and attract new customers, we recognised the need to evolve within an increasingly crowded and competitive market. This included a new creative direction — to stop being overly loud (you don’t have to shout to stand out) and start exploring new channels for growth and evolving our measurement framework to support these changes.
While TV ads helped make Go.Compare famous, we faced growing pressure from shifting viewing habits, rising costs across key media channels, and internal budget cuts. Historically, we had successfully relied on TV, but we recognised the need to diversify our audiovisual (AV) mix to future-proof our brand. Our aim: to find the perfect brand platform (or platforms) and decide what the future held for Gio.
Fine-tuning our marketing mix for a new advertising landscape
Marketing has always been a driving force at Go.Compare. We receive incredible support from senior stakeholders and are consistently encouraged to innovate and grow. This backing was crucial as we embarked on significant changes to our marketing strategy.
YouTube ROI is 4.5X stronger than TV, which helped us feel confident investing in YouTube and diversifying our AV mix.
We started by revisiting our media mix. We ran a series of workshops with our agency, Hearts & Science, and Google, aimed at deepening our understanding of YouTube and how other brands maximise its potential. Through these workshops, we learnt that all demographics are active on YouTube, making it an ideal platform for Go.Compare. However, securing stakeholder buy-in for testing and experimentation required us to demonstrate YouTube’s extensive reach and proven effectiveness.
Composing a case for senior-level buy-in
We used a measurement study powered by Nielsen, demonstrating that YouTube provided cost-efficient reach — and complemented TV by reaching an incremental audience, particularly light TV viewers. As we progressed, we used Kantar Brand Lift insights to evaluate the accuracy of this reach and reassess our brand effectiveness KPIs. After integrating insights from the Kantar research directly into our live YouTube campaigns, our findings were promising: YouTube drove a 9.4 percentage point increase in our brand consideration.1
To demonstrate YouTube’s return on investment (ROI), we worked with Google and Hearts & Science to develop a new marketing mix model (MMM). This model was designed to help us optimise our media investment across YouTube, TV, and other channels. While we have used MMMs for budgeting decisions for years, we wanted to create a new model that better reflects the evolving consumer landscape and provides more actionable, granular insights.
Combining all these studies and approaches gave us a comprehensive view of YouTube's reach, ROI, and impact on brand and revenue KPIs. Moreover, it successfully secured senior stakeholders’ support to go for it.
Striking the right chord with a new era for Gio
The primary goal was to find a new creative path while protecting the brand’s legacy that we’d worked so hard to build. The decision was made very early on to retain Gio but transition him into a new era as a “watermark” character, much like the Colonel for KFC. He would remain a recognisable part of the brand, but didn’t always need to be front and centre.
The perfect moment to act emerged when we forged a partnership with the Welsh Rugby Union (WRU). We’re a proud Welsh business. Go.Compare was founded in Wales, and — fun fact — the actor who voices Gio, Wynne Evans, is also Welsh. YouTube proved to be an excellent platform for this dream collaboration, offering a way to bring our stories to life through a multi-format approach. This allowed us to create content that not only tapped into our customers’ passion points but also captured their interest effectively.
In partnership with the creative agency, Drum, we produced a series of short films designed specifically for YouTube showcasing team warm-ups and challenges with the WRU squad in preparation for the Guinness Six Nations, featuring guest appearances by Gio. One notable device we employed was the challenge format, a popular and proven YouTube style that resonates well with viewers.
To own the Six Nations moment across YouTube, we sponsored the Six Nations YouTube channel. We utilised masthead ads on key match days and ran our ads within a bespoke YouTube Select lineup to engage rugby fans. Additionally, we employed AI-powered video reach campaigns to extend our storytelling to a broader audience.
Brand-lifting results that hit the high note
Our new media mix and brand revamp have helped us reach new heights (and customers). A study by Kantar Context Lab highlighted the success of our YouTube campaign for the Six Nations. Notably, we saw a 21% increase in top-of-mind awareness,2 alongside positive gains in both consideration and favorability. This surge in awareness contributed to a 4.5X year-over-year (YoY) increase in website visits and a 20% rise in searches for our brand.3
The MMM was instrumental in measuring and validating the effectiveness of our YouTube sponsorships and overall campaign performance. Our analysis revealed that the sponsorships generated a substantial return, contributing to an 86% increase in overall YouTube ROI compared to the previous period.4 Additionally, the model showed that YouTube ROI is 4.5X stronger than TV, which helped us feel confident investing in YouTube and diversifying our AV mix.5
Engaging with our audience and potential customers on this scale has been transformative. We’ve successfully refreshed our brand, ushering it (and Gio) into a new chapter, and developed a future-proofed MMM to support these efforts. YouTube has now become a core part of our marketing strategy.
We feel well-equipped for the modern media landscape and the future of marketing — a future that, importantly, continues to feature Gio. We’re excited to see what he gets up to next.
