Aleksandr Orlov, the meerkat star of the Compare The Market ads, has held off stiff competition from Lewis Hamilton, Mr. T, Dannii Minogue and Lionel Messi to make the ad featuring his great-grandfather's victory over a mongoose army the U.K.'s most-liked TV ad of the year.
Orlov won out just ahead of creative TV spots for Magner's Irish Cider, Maltesers, Santander and Snickers.
While TV ads for fast moving consumer goods -- for drinks, sweets and tissue products -- dominate the 2010 list of the U.K.'s most-liked with six of the top 10, ads for banking, insurance, and retail also feature.
The type of characters in teach of top 10 ads vary too. Four ads used celebrities, four used everyday people and two used animal characters -- a meerkat and the Cushelle koala.
| 10 Most-Liked TV Ads in the UK, 2010 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Rank | Brand (click to view the ad) | Ad Description | Likeability Index |
| 1 | CompareTheMarket.com | Story of meerkats fighting an army of mongooses in a snowy landscape | 256 |
| 2 | Magner's Irish Cider | Clonmel home of Magner's Cider; lorry over golf course; through brick wall | 217 |
| 3 | Maltesers | Two couples watch a movie; girlfriends position boyfriends so are cuddling | 206 |
| 4 | Santander Bank | Family driving in car; boy falls asleep with red Legos; feat. Lewis Hamilton | 189 |
| 5 | Snickers Candy | Mr. T doing pushups; listen up; suckers; get tough; one-fingered pushups | 189 |
| 6 | Cancer Research | Race for Life this summer; beat cancer, enter now | 172 |
| 7 | Marks & Spencer | Come on girls first positions; feat. Peter Kay, Twiggy and Dannii Minogue | 172 |
| 8 | Velvet Paper Towels | Boy in suit points where trees to be planted in forest; adults hold trees in pots | 167 |
| 9 | Cushelle Bathroom Tissue | Cartoon koala bear leaps, hugs pack of tissue, new name (prev. Charmin) | 167 |
| 10 | Pepsi Max | Professional footballers; including Lionel Messi, play kids for a Pepsi Max | 167 |
| Source: The Nielsen Company. | |||
The most-liked ad of the year was compiled using more than 1.5 million survey results from viewers watching evening TV in the U.K. The scores for likeability are collected across the whole year at the time each new ad is broadcast. The likeability index is a measure of TV viewers who like an ad they saw, and whose brand they can remember, during the normal course of their TV viewing.
