Advertising agency Dare have boldly “vandalized” their client’s billboards in what is clearly a cleverly calculated publicity stunt. Having landed the GoCompare account back in February, the agency pre-defaced/graffitied over several billboards across the UK, which features the comparison website’s annoyingly catchy Italian tenor/mascot, Gio Compario. While some of these “acts of vandalism” are convincing, others are not so much. For example, the one which has been altered to say “go compare and get some singing lessons” is a little cheesy. That said, it wasn’t too long until “Go Compare” was trending on Twitter – so as a means of gaining publicity, I guess that makes the campaign a success?

@karenanita It’s not real. It’s how the posters went up, every single one has something like that on it

— Kev Robinson (@KevsXe) July 3, 2012

According to a GoCompare spokesman, the graffitied billboards were part of a national poster campaign for the company’s latest TV advert, which aired during Coronation Street last night (watch here).