Duracell faced a unique challenge to engage a younger audience in a product category that is often overlooked, infrequently purchased, and perceived as uninteresting, especially by a generation accustomed to rechargeable devices rather than repurchasing batteries. To tackle this, we needed to make Duracell relevant in their lives.
VML created a series of TikTok activations that were strategically powerful and entertaining. Our insight was that batteries are not interesting, but you only care about them when they run out. We had to find the perfect fit in social, taking us to the gaming space, which is often about performance and longevity and has a huge audience cross over with families and younger audiences. In fact, 85% of Millennial TikTok users' game once a week (TikTok Marketing Science Global Entertainment Study conducted by Material, December 2021) and 76% of TikTok users are entertained by TikTok first gaming ads on TikTok (TikTok Marketing Science Global TikTok First Creative Study conducted by Ipsos, November 2022). We also knew that this gaming space was under exploited by brands, especially in the battery category so this is a space we could own with the opportunity to lead it. This creative activation was designed not only to position Duracell as a superior brand using exceptional TikTok effect skills but also to connect with TikTok’s culture hungry community with entertaining content that felt sharable and unexpected. This approach delivered an entertaining brand world that met our objectives of driving awareness and engagements with a younger audience.
Our approach was twofold, 1) drive reach and engagements to build Top of Mind Awareness (TOMA), and 2) deliver this through entertaining TikTok first formats to maximise reach.
As a strategic platform, we penned ‘equitainment’ as our guiding force for all creativity in social. This finds the perfect sweet spot of equity-led brand content versus what the community really wants to engage in: entertaining content (79% of TikTok users are more likely to purchase from entertaining brand (TikTok Marketing Science Global Entertainment Study conducted by Material, December 2021).
Having recognised the natural role batteries play in powering gaming experiences, we launched a series of TikTok effects and games. The content was seeded out on our brand channels with boosted media, whilst also partnering with our diverse network of influencers who activated the challenge in their unique style encouraging their community to get involved. Each creator took on the task of dropping a Duracell battery to mimic the promise of enduring performance, seamlessly integrating the brand’s core message. The branded game soon took hold, quickly becoming a powerful expression of creativity within the TikTok community. This creative activation was designed not only to position Duracell as a superior brand using exceptional TikTok effect skills but also to connect with TikTok’s culture hungry community with entertaining content that felt sharable and unexpected. By positioning Duracell within the context of gaming (a space where batteries have a natural right to play), we filled a gap in the market where no other brand was leveraging gaming effects to connect with audiences.
The games delivered exceptional results, both creatively and in advancing our strategic objectives.
The interactive challenges garnered over 80 million views, 5 million post engagements, and inspired more than 240K pieces of user-generated videos, cementing Duracell’s position as a leader in the battery category.
Notably, our receipt of the Gold “Effect House Creator Bonus Badge” from TikTok in 2024 validated our creative approach, confirming that ‘Bunny’s Arcade’ ranks among the top 1% of TikTok creators, not just as a brand, but as superior innovators. Overall, the campaign not only exceeded our engagement targets but also set new benchmarks for integrating brand equity into trend-driven creative on TikTok.
Beyond the numbers, our creative approach set a new benchmark for integrating brand equity into entertaining social native content. The Battery Drop game demonstrated how a typically low interest category could become part of cultural conversations within a target audience, giving us a new social framework to connect with younger audiences for low interest categories. On the games themselves we received a plethora of comments that show an uptick in interest e.g. “Your batteries are better than any others they last much longer”, “I haven't changed my Duracell batteries since 5000BC”.