Gocompare.com - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Gocompare.com is a British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

financial services comparison website. The website enables people to compare prices on a variety of financial products, such as car insurance, home insurance

Home insurance

Home insurance, also commonly called hazard insurance or homeowner's insurance , is the type of property insurance that covers private homes...

, pet insurance

Pet insurance

Pet health insurance pays the veterinary costs if one's pet becomes ill or is injured in an accident. Some policies will also pay out when the pet dies, or if it's lost or stolen....

, travel insurance

Travel insurance

Travel insurance is insurance that is intended to cover medical expenses, financial default of travel suppliers, and other losses incurred while traveling, either within one's own country, or internationally...

, motorbike insurance, van insurance, mortgages and utilities

Public utility

A public utility is an organization that maintains the infrastructure for a public service . Public utilities are subject to forms of public control and regulation ranging from local community-based groups to state-wide government monopolies...

History

Gocompare.com was established in November 2006 and is based in Newport

Newport

Newport is a city and unitary authority area in Wales. Standing on the banks of the River Usk, it is located about east of Cardiff and is the largest urban area within the historic county boundaries of Monmouthshire and the preserved county of Gwent...

, Wales

Wales

Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...

. The company's founder and chief executive officer is Hayley Parsons, who was formerly head of business development at Confused.com

Confused.com

Confused.com, part of the Admiral Group, is a British price comparison website specialising in insurance and financial services.-History:Confused.com launched in 2002, becoming the UK’s first car insurance comparison site. It is based in Cardiff, Wales with its offices located near the headquarters...

.

Gocompare.com was the first comparison site to focus on features of insurance products rather than just listing prices. This led to Gocompare.com being invited to become a member of the British Insurance Brokers Association (BIBA).

In March 2009, Gocompare.com became the first price comparison site in the UK to compare over 100 different car insurance providers.

Services

Gocompare.com provides a comparison service for car, home, motorbike, van, and pet insurance and breakdown cover

Breakdown cover

Breakdown cover is a service that provides assistance to motorists whose vehicles have suffered a mechanical failure that is significant enough to leave them stranded at their present location....

. Gocompare.com also provides comparison services for travel insurance, gas and electricity, broadband

Broadband Internet access

Broadband Internet access, often shortened to just "broadband", is a high data rate, low-latency connection to the Internet— typically contrasted with dial-up access using a 56 kbit/s modem or satellite Internet with inherently high latency....

, loan

Loan

A loan is a type of debt. Like all debt instruments, a loan entails the redistribution of financial assets over time, between the lender and the borrower....

s, credit card

Credit card

A credit card is a small plastic card issued to users as a system of payment. It allows its holder to buy goods and services based on the holder's promise to pay for these goods and services...

s, mortgages and other financial products through preferred providers such as Energylinx

Energylinx

Energylinx is an international energy consultancy firm that provides dedicated consultancy services and energy comparator services operates throughout Europe, the US, Canada and Australia....

and Experian

Experian

Experian plc, formerly known as CCN Systems, is a global credit information group with operations in 36 countries. The company employs 15,500 people with corporate headquarters in Dublin, Ireland and operational headquarters in Nottingham, England and Costa Mesa, California, US...

Awards

The company won the 'One to Watch' category at the Fast Growth Business Awards 2008, with the judges complementing the management team for 'an extremely well-executed business with a clear USP

Unique selling proposition

The Unique Selling Proposition is a marketing concept that was first proposed as a theory to explain a pattern among successful advertising campaigns of the early 1940s. It states that such campaigns made unique propositions to the customer and that this convinced them to switch brands...

and strong brand'.
Hayley Parsons was winner of the 'Woman in Business' award at the South Wales Chamber of Commerce Business Awards 2009. Parsons was also the winner of the Western Mail's 'Welsh Woman in Innovation Award' in 2008. In September 2009 Gocompare.com achieved the Investors in People

Investors in People

Launched in 1991 Investors in People is a business improvement tool administered by UK Commission for Employment and Skills and supported by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills ....

award.

Hayley Parsons won the 'Business Leader' category in the Inspire Wales Awards 2010 The awards, which are organised by the Institute of Welsh Affairs

Institute of Welsh Affairs

The Institute of Welsh Affairs is an independent, membership-based think-tank based in the capital of Wales, Cardiff, owing no allegiance to any political or economic interest group...

, recognise the role that Welsh residents play in encouraging active citizenship and in promoting their communities on a local, regional, national and global scale.

Advertising

Traditionally, Gocompare.com's advertising focused on educating consumers about the benefits of using a comparison site. However, in June 2009, Gocompare.com launched an advertising campaign featuring a fictional Italian tenor

Tenor

The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...

called Gio Compario. Gio Compario is played by Welsh tenor Wynne Evans

Wynne Evans

Wynne Evans is a Welsh tenor. Popularly known for his role as the tenor Gio Compario in the Gocompare.com insurance adverts on television in the United Kingdom, he sang, , in the 25th Anniversary Celebration of Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera at the Royal Albert Hall...

. The song in the adverts is based on the George M. Cohan

George M. Cohan

George Michael Cohan , known professionally as George M. Cohan, was a major American entertainer, playwright, composer, lyricist, actor, singer, dancer, and producer....

classic Over There
Over There
"Over There" is a 1917 song popular with United States soldiers in both world wars.It was written by George M. Cohan during World War I. Notable early recordings include versions by Nora Bayes, Enrico Caruso, Billy Murray, and Charles King....

and was voted as the most irritating advertisement of both 2009 and 2010.

Other Information

In September 2007 the company admitted that, on one occasion, an unlawful breach of privacy had taken place with regard to the passing on of data provided by customers. It said that this was the result of a breach of contract by a sub-contractor, Performance Direct, and stated that it would take immediate action to prevent it happening again.

In January 2008 the site was blacklisted for a time by Google

Google

Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...

due to "irregular inbound links". This resulted in its share of search traffic for the term "car insurance" reducing from 17.49% to 2.31%. Gocompare.com was blacklisted again in April 2009.

History

Services

Awards

Advertising

Other Information

See also