Gocompare.com Gocompare.com GoCompare is a British financial services comparison website, established in Wales in 2006. It provides comparison details for financial products including car insurance, home and pet insurance and breakdown cover. Since 2009 its adverts have featured a fictional Italian tenor named Gio Compario (played by Welsh tenor Wynne Evans), which have been voted "most irritating advertisement". It is listed on the London Stock Exchange. GoCompare was established in November 2006 and is based in Newport, Wales. The company's founder was Hayley Parsons, who worked for Admiral Insurance for 14 years, and was formerly head of business development at Confused.com.
Compare the Market Australia business continues to use these characters in their own marketing. Another meerkat character, Baby Oleg, was introduced at the end of 2015. The storyline continued with Aleksandr Orlov buying the Compare the Market business, and introduced a human character named Tom. In 2017, the company launched a limited run of meerkat toys for their health insurance customers. Aleksandr’s catchphrase, “simples”, is so well known that it can be found in both the Macmillan English dictionary, as well as the Oxford English Dictionary. Compare the Market Australia Comparethemarket.com.au is an Australian price comparison website operated by Compare the Market Pty Ltd.