Compare The Market Australia monitoring meerkat campaign over Ukraine

Compare The Market Australia is considering the situation in Ukraine over its long-running campaign ‘Compare The Meerkats’, which features Russian meerkats.

The statement follows news its UK counterpart, according to The Guardian, pulled its ads on news bulletins over the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Aleksander Orlev, one of the Russian meerkats

Compare the Market Australia told Mumbrella: “Like the rest of the world, we are shocked by the events in Ukraine.

“The meerkat characters are entirely fictional and have been used by the company since its inception in 2012. They obviously have no connection to the current situation.

“We will continue to carefully consider and review the situation.”

The campaign in Australia launched with the brand in 2013, having been in the UK since 2009. One of the recent campaigns with creative agency VCCP depicted a ‘savings sleeper’, released back in July 2021 before the Ukrainian international crisis.

The announcement follows the controversy in the US when CNN broadcasted an Applebee’s commercial during news footage from Ukraine. The ad was pulled, and both Applebee’s and CNN apologised for the oversight, according to AdAge.