When it comes to the circus, there are just some things that are expected. A classic circus clown is one of them. But a meerkat clown?

Sergei meek and shaking with fear, glances upfrom a crouched position, wearing a red nose and what appears to be a clown-motif helmet. A moment later, he is fired from a cannon arcoss the tent. From the crowd, a voice cries out, "Sergei! You Crazy! You resign?" It is Aleksandr Orlov, Sergei's former employer, emerging from the crowd, Sergei's resignation letter in hand. As Sergei continues his clown routine,circling around the ring on a tricycle, Aleksandr Orlov emplores him to return. But Sergei resists. Ironically, as a pie is thrown in into Sergei's face, he declares he only wants a job with dignity. Aleksandr will do anything to get Sergei back – he’ll give away as many meerkat toys as necessary!

Finally, with the choice of either cycling through the ring of fire, or returning to Aleksandr Orlov’s employ, Sergei resolutely quits the circus. He goes to his dressing room and packs his things. Aleksandr Orlov is overjoyed, declaring, “Please. Give back Sergei dignity. Get car or home insurance through comparethemarket.com!” Simples.

Comparethemarket.com's reprieve was made with CG-animated characters composited into live action sets. All of the moving elements were props puppeteered on set, and ensuring seamless interaction between the characters and these objects was critical to the believable integration of the Meerkats into their world.

One of the greatest challenges in making the spot work, though, was in animating the emotional performance of Sergei - Aleksandr’s loyal assistant who quit his job to perform in the circus. Our sympathy for Sergei is key to the success of the film, and animating nuances of expression onto the Meerkats required careful work, and clever thinking to get something that worked for the design of the character and also tugged at the heartstrings of the audience.

Booksales reached #7 on Amazon’s ‘Movers & Shakers’ list, and the book set has been rated 5 stars by 95% of reviewers amazon.co.uk, including: “…for my partner he has thoroughly enjoyed reading these books and finding out about the different characters!” Following the live reading events, booksales reached 149,589 in just 6 months. Box set sales comprised 36% of the total booksales, achieving our goal of driving desirability of all the characters, and individual book sales for the lesser-known meerkats including Maiya, Vassily, Bogdan, Yakov and Sergei together comprised almost 68% of total individual book sales.