How do top adverts drive you madmen? It’s ‘simples’

HOW do you irritate television viewers but at the same time make sure your advert is scarred onto their memories? The answer, it seems, is “simples”.

They may be the adverts viewers love to hate, but those featuring talking meerkats, an excitable opera singer, nodding dogs and Gary Lineker – not to mention furniture stores with seemingly never-ending sales – have found the formula to stick in the memory of the nation.

They were among the most recalled commercials on television in an annual snapshot survey, carried out by the magazine Marketing. It proves that being irritating is no barrier to being remembered.

The most successful advert was from Comparethemarket.com, featuring meerkats Aleksandr and Sergei presenting an office worker with a free cuddly toy. The adverts, which were part of a £19.4 million TV campaign, received a 67 per cent recall rating.

The long-running meerkat adverts have surprised many industry experts who did not expect their popularity – based partly on the catchphrase “Simples” – to last.

Comparethemarket finished slightly ahead of Marks and Spencer, whose £33.3m advert, featuring sitcom actress Caroline Quentin, scored 64 per cent.

And even though they seem to be advertising a sale every day of the year, it seems adverts for furniture chain DFS are also well recalled by British viewers.