Duracell had the bunny first. Its commercials showed a row of battery-powered toy rabbits beating drums, slowing to a stop one by one until only the bunny powered by a Duracell copper-top was still going. The Duracell bunny debuted in North America in 1973.
An opening
By 1988, whatever trademark Duracell had held on the drumming bunny character in the United States had lapsed. Energizer, its biggest rival, saw an opportunity to turn Duracell’s own advertising into a joke.
The first Energizer Bunny commercial, produced by the agency DDB Needham Worldwide, aired in the U.S. in 1988. It began as a direct parody of Duracell’s ad: the same drumming bunnies, the same slow-down, but midway through, a pink bunny wearing sunglasses and flip-flops marches onto the screen, pounding a huge bass drum and swinging a mallet over his head. He keeps going long after the rest have stopped.
The ad also took a swipe at Duracell’s claim. Critics pointed out that Duracell compared its alkaline batteries with cheaper carbon-zinc ones, not with rival alkaline batteries such as Energizer.
The bunny goes rogue
The parody alone didn’t make the bunny famous. What did was what came next. From 1989, Energizer’s bunny left the studio and wandered onto the sets of realistic-looking commercials for made-up products, interrupting them mid-pitch as he drummed straight through, while an announcer said he “keeps going and going and going.”
The trick was clever. For the first few seconds, viewers thought they were watching a different, dull ad, until the bunny barged in. The fake ads were deliberately bland, which made the bunny the hero of a small rebellion against boring commercials. The format was spoofed in the 1993 film Hot Shots! Part Deux.
Battles with Duracell
The bunny’s success kept the rivalry alive in court. Energizer’s original claim that “nothing outlasts the Energizer” was changed after a Duracell lawsuit disputed it. From 1993 to 1995, Energizer ran ads mocking a fictional rival battery, “Supervolt,” with a weasel mascot that looked very much like a Duracell product.
In 1992 the two companies struck a deal dividing rabbit rights: Duracell kept its bunny for Europe and other markets, while Energizer got the sole right to sell rabbit-branded batteries in the United States. The truce didn’t end the fighting. In 2016 Energizer sued Duracell after rabbit-branded Duracell packs imported from Europe began showing up in U.S. stores, and a judge refused Duracell’s request to dismiss the case.
Why it worked
- It turned a rival’s asset into a punchline. Energizer took the image Duracell had spent years building and made it about itself.
- The idea was the benefit. A bunny that never stops is a battery that lasts, told without a single technical claim.
- The interruptions were fun. Crashing fake ads made viewers pay attention to the first seconds of every commercial.
- It was simple to extend. Any new set, any new fake product, any new situation could get interrupted.
Legacy
The Energizer Bunny became one of the most recognizable mascots in American advertising, and “keeps going and going” became everyday shorthand for anything that won’t stop. It is also one of the few mascots that began as a joke about a competitor and ended up more famous than the original.