THE 14TH ANNUAL SHORTY AWARDS

The Shorty Awards honor the best of social media and digital. View this season's finalists!

Duracell x Duolingo Partnership

Entered in Brand Partnership

Objective

In a low interest category, how do we make Duracell more entertaining and exciting to connect with a younger audience? In Mexico, TikTok is home to an entertaining collection of mascots that resonate with a highly engaged community. Notably, Duo sits at the top of this social hierarchy, but Duracell wanted to break into the unique cultural space and make its iconic Bunny a recognised figure within Mexico to engage with their younger target audience.  

Strategy

Our strategy was simple yet bold: establish Bunny as a powerful influencer in the mascot universe by leveraging proactive community management and reactive content creation. We began by initiating conversations with other mascots on TikTok, including Duo, using Bunny as our voice. By engaging directly with these mascots, we created opportunities for entertaining interactions and cross brand collaboration. This real-time interaction ultimately allowed us to build a rapport with Duo where we challenged other mascots to prove they were more powerful than the Duracell Bunny, which created a fun rivalry that audiences could follow along with. 

Over the course of one month, our strategy gained momentum, with 2 pieces of reactive content, which leaned into the competitive spirit of the mascot world, going viral. These playful interactions positioned Bunny as a new type of influencer which allowed us to partner with Duo on a more formal basis. Our activity in 2024, has unlocked viral views and deep audience participation along with a formal partnership between Duracell and Duolingo in Mexico, which presents Bunny as the powerful mascot behind Duo’s superior energy that takes him into an online mascot sport-fighting event, La Botagada. 

Results

Bunny’s partnership and playful proactive content delivered exceptional results in Mexico, both in terms of performance and brand awareness. Our campaign achieved over 6 million organic views, which drove 91% increase in follows from 146K to 279K in one month, demonstrating the power of authentic engagement and localised content that plays to a community's passion points. 

Through strategic community management and reactive content creation, we successfully integrated Bunny into a space dominated by beloved local mascots, including the superstar, Duo. By sparking conversations, creating playful rivalries, and powering Duo’s fighting event, Bunny went from newcomer to Duo’s official trainer, which is testament to the strength of our strategy and execution. This campaign highlights Duracell’s ability to adapt global strategies to local markets, leveraging cultural insights to create meaningful connections with audiences. 

Reactive Content 

  1. Duo suddenly disappeared, so Duracell joined the conversation by teasing that we might know where he went using a trending format from social: https://www.tiktok.com/@duracellespanol/video/7463265322078948614 

  1. Our first video went viral, so we continued to participate in the moment with the “Debí Tirar Más Fotos” trend from Bad Bunny's song. The video talks about how we should've spent more time with Duo before he disappeared: https://www.tiktok.com/@duracellespanol/video/7463630992599715077 

Led to Duo partnership 

  1. Duo reappears in Mexico as he was training for ‘La Botargada del Ano 2’ with his powerful trainer, Bunny: https://www.tiktok.com/@duracellespanol/video/7467346618321358085 

  1. The partnership culminated with Duo and Bunny doing a BTS skit to show the process of training Duo to be the most powerful mascot in La Botargada contest: https://www.tiktok.com/@duracellespanol/video/7468449947290062086  

Media

Entrant Company / Organization Name

VML, Duracell

Links

Entry Credits