Esure’s Peter Wood set to reunite the old ‘Gio Compario’ gang at Gocompare.com

Insurance mogul Peter Wood, the founder of Direct Line and current vehicle Esure, knows what he likes in his ads. In the past that’s included the late Michael Winner for Esure (‘calm down dear,’ below) and, more recently, Welsh ‘tenor’ Gio Compario for Gocompare.com.

Esure bought the outstanding 50 per cent of Gocompare earlier this month for £95m and Campaign reports that Wood is to bring back Gio, devised by husband and wife creative team Chris Wilkins and Sian Vickers and shot by Graham Rose.

Which means curtains for incumbent agency Fold7 and its guided tours of Wales (Gocompare is based in the principality).

Fold7 founder Ryan Newey says: “We did what we knew was right for the brand and it delivered great results. We’re generally a pragmatic bunch but in this instance we’re sticking to our creative convictions. We’ve parted company on a high and wish the business every success.”

Fold7’s campaign looked like it might develop – until it came up with this.

At which point you felt the campaign had lost its way – or the client was having second thoughts.

So it looks like we’re set for more of this (the best of a raucous bunch).

Another reason for giving commercial TV a miss…