Duracell’s Quantum Campaign (2014)

When you think of alkaline batteries, only 2 names really come to mind: Energizer and Duracell. The Energizer Bunny campaign has been one of the most successful we’ve seen in our time, and it’s still going (…and going and going). However, the focus of this post is about the 2013 introduction of Duracell’s new Quantum Battery to the marketplace.

Since forever, Duracell has relied on the slogan “Trusted Everywhere,” but with Quantum they took a different approach. The ad campaign avoids gimmicky characters and cheesy “pick-up lines,” and focuses on real-life situations to demonstrate the would-be effectiveness of their product. 
With alkaline batteries being less relied upon these days, Duracell reminded us that not everything has gone digital and that batteries as we once knew them are very much part of our lives today.  

Duracell’s campaign helped sales of Energizer’s alkaline batteries in the U.S. drop by a little over 10% between June and September of that same year. Conversely, Duracell’s U.S. sales figures for those few months showed an increase in sales of just-under 6%. 

They did a number of things to affect sales in such a way. First and foremost, they declared the Quantum alkaline battery “the best alkaline battery ever.” An important thing to recognize is that their ads no longer included reference to Energizer – and why should they? Quantum was the best and, according to Duracell there was no competition. Secondly, the promotions offered around the time of Quantum’s launch made it a very attractive product to retailers. As stated in a November 2013 article in Advertising Age (the stats in this post are from that same article), Duracell muscled Energizer out of Sam’s Club and took their place. That’s big news! 

Lastly, Duracell engaged [potential] consumers and played to their emotions

The bus stop commercial (Canada) was my first exposure to Duracell’s Quantum campaign and most definitely got my attention. I recall immediately visiting Duracell.com to check out the battery and read about the technology behind it. It was the uniqueness of the commercial that got me, but the true impact of the message lies in the emotional connection it makes with the audience and the call to action it asks them to take (to visit the product’s Facebook page, whereby they can “share the warmth”).

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