![\"duracell-1024x5441\"](\"https:\/\/imagemme.com\/newsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/duracell-1024x5441-1024x544.jpg\")
<\/p>\nThe new Duracell commercial featuring Derrick Coleman \u2013 the inspirational, undrafted Seattle Seahawks running back who was born deaf \u2013 successfully earns Duracell a level of emotional brand equity that no battery company has ever enjoyed, much less from a single campaign.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The most (and perhaps only) identifiable battery ad campaign (for everyone over the age of twenty-one, anyway) is the Energizer Bunny mascot for Energizer, who\u2019s been a media presence, in one form or another, since 1989.<\/p>\n
As a campaign, the Energizer Bunny excelled by virtue of simple repetition. Year after year, consumers encountered the Bunny, becoming part of our cultural\/consumer identity. Still, the Bunny only generated familiarity with Energizer, not loyalty, since the creation of loyalty requires a tangible set of values with which the consumer can identify and come to depend on. To quote Ezra Pound, \u201conly emotion endures\u201d.<\/p>\n
![\"derrick-coleman1\"](\"https:\/\/imagemme.com\/newsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/Derrick-Coleman1.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
While Pound\u2019s comment was made in the context of art and poetry, in that only pieces driven by a universal emotional value would transcend the temporary culture of a particular time and place, the same goes for successful marketing\/branding\/advertising, since what is funny or witty may not be so tomorrow (based on zeitgeist, shifting intellectual perspectives, etc.). Dissimilarly, what is inspiring, scary, loving, etc., is based on human responses that haven\u2019t hanged in human history and will never change.<\/p>\n
Before watching the video, I wondered how Duracell would borrow the emotional value of Derrick Coleman\u2019s story without the process seeming like a gratuitous, transparent appropriation. To put it simply, they were smart.<\/p>\n
![\"140114111400_derrick-coleman1\"](\"https:\/\/imagemme.com\/newsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/140114111400_Derrick-Coleman1.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
First off, the basic connection between the battery and the athlete is that they \u201cnever stop\u201d \u2013 Duracell in the sense that it\u2019s long-lasting, Coleman in that he never succumbed to life\u2019s obstacles. Next, Duracell played its role in assisting Coleman \u2013 providing the power for his hearing aid. The ad was also supported by witty writing, with Coleman at one point saying over voiceover that \u201che\u2019s been deaf since he was three, so he didn\u2019t listen\u201d when naysayers predicted his failure. The final, perfect tagline: \u201cTrust the power within\u201d \u2013 speaks again to the power within the battery and the emotional power of the ad\u2019s subject; a line they are sure to continue using for similarly emotive purposes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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