After trawling through what seemed to be an endless array of job hunting websites advertising pretty much exactly the same jobs I came across something a little different.
It was a job vacancy entitled "Ambassador of Meerkovo" for the well known company Compare the Market. The job was simple - 6 months working from home for a the healthy sum of £40,000 (yes, you read it right) saving the "plight of the Meerkats".....well, I'm not much of an animal rights activist (although I do not condone cruelty to animals in any way) but for 6 months work for that wage I'd happily help save a bunch of fictional Meerkats in the fictional land of Meerkovo from the evil reign of the sister website comparethemarket.com. The application seemed simple. All you needed to do was spend a bit of time on the meerkat website and come up with a cunning strategy for a new campaign that the company would promote in order to "save Meerkovo" - if you were lucky you would get to implement the idea with the help of their team of professionals and get to attend events as the official "Ambassador of Meerkovo".....at which point I did envisage myself in a chariot being pulled by meerkats.
So, I started my research by going directly to the meerkat website. Two hours later, I was still in the meerkat website going around the fictional town of Meerkovo and finding out about the inhabitants and how comparethemarket was ruining their lives. The website was very clever. It had me playing games, going on quests and best of all it had a pop up that went off every half an hour that asked me if I really did want to be comparing meerkats or if I wanted to go directly to the insurance comparison website. What a cheeky bunch of Meerkats, ey?!
So, I'm wasting my whole day using their website, finding out about the company and trying my hardest to come up with the best idea to win me the job that by the time it came to writing the application, I realised just how cunning they had been. Not only has the company increased their website traffic a lot (based solely on the ridiculous amount of time I had to spend on the website, all of which was necessary to complete the application form) BUT on top of that the company then receives a barrage of new and innovative marketing ideas for FREE on behalf of the general public.
On the one hand, I admire the Meerkat vs. Market strategy - it has entertained us for a few years now. So much in fact that the fictional autobiography "A Simples Life" by the star of the campaign "Aleksandr Orlov" became the UK number one best-seller for Christmas 2010, outselling celebrity authors such as Nelson Mandela, Stephen Fry and Cheryl Cole.
They are definitely doing something right. But, from my experience on the website I found it all a bit too much. I feel like the company has lost credibility by over-working the meerkat angle. I have used the insurance comparison site and found it to be a good, fast and effective method of getting my car insurance but with the constant pop-ups between comparing car insurance to comparing meerkats it does become a little overwhelming.
Before I sign off, I will leave you with the image of the meerkat that I created and 'compared' Not a completely unproductive day after all?!
Simples.
