Image: Comparethemarket.com
He may not like the hoards of people who accidentally happen upon his site, but they certainly like him.
Aleksandr Orlov, the animated face of comparethemarket.com's advertising campaign, has been voted the overwhelming favourite insurance character in a recent poll by MSN.
The Russian meerkat racked up 63% of the more than 10,000 votes, well ahead of the second-placed Churchill bulldog (19%), the character behind insurer Churchill's brand.
None of the others came close to matching these two, with the Gocompare tenor and Sheila's Wheel's ladies in pink sharing third spot with just 4% of the votes each.
Iggy Pop, who put his name behind the Swiftcover commercials, managed just 2% - the same as E-sure's Michael Winner.
Image: MSN
A marketing marvel
The poll serves to highlight the success of comparethemarket's advertising campaign, which follows the travails of a Russian meerkat, whose site is constantly bombarded by people looking for insurance.
The company has been quick to capitalise on this success, launching a number of new gimmicks to keep the character in the public eye.
The comparison site has created a profile for Aleksandr on social networking site Facebook, which boasts over 600,000 fans, while on Twitter the meerkat has more than 30,000 "followers".
Earlier this month, the company announced the start of a new monthly "Meerchat" podcast, with David Hasselhoff the first guest.
David Parry PA Wire
