Duracell and Wunderman Thompson highlight costly battery replacements with funny campaign

Procell, the battery brand owned by Duracell and designed for industrial and professional use, has launched a new campaign with Wunderman Thompson.

It showcases how its longer-lasting batteries can help businesses save money and avoid unnecessary disruption.

The integrated B2B campaign, titled ‘Procell Battery Changer’, launched on 14th March and runs throughout the year, demonstrating Wunderman Thompson’s whole brand thinking approach across online video, digital banners, social, paid search and direct marketing, as well as trade show support.

With witty creative, it aims to shift the procurement thought process by raising awareness among a business audience of batteries’ true cost beyond purchase price by highlighting the time and money implications of having to replace batteries more frequently.

A 30” video spot shows a gleeful office worker revealing a great cost-saving measure to his boss. By switching to long-lasting Procell batteries, he says the firm will no longer need to pay for a full-time ‘battery changer’ and their assistant. His boss expresses disbelief that they even pay for this, while battery changers attempting to replace the office clock’s battery end up smashing it instead. The spot ends with the line: ‘Procell. Replace Less. Save More’.

Another spot features an office worker who doesn’t require any battery replacements; nonetheless, the battery changers hang around. This spot features the line: ‘If you pay less for batteries, you might pay more for labour.’

Jason Berry, creative director at Wunderman Thompson said: “B2B advertising is often stale and unengaging, but our campaign treats procurement buyers as humans who just want to be entertained and engaged like anyone else. It’s time to have fun with a subject that is normally prosaic and functional so, to create cut-through, we devised a humorous personification of a category problem, and positioned Procell batteries as the solution, harvesting comedy gold with a ruthlessly logical idea.”

Credits

Executive Creative Director: Tom Drew
Creative Director: Jason Berry
Junior Copywriter: Will Simpson
Junior Art Director: Rowan Hopkins
Producer: Liberty Willison
Production Assistant: Yasmin Al-Jawad
Integrated Programme Director: Danny Baylis
Creative Producer: Elizabeth Marlborough
Executive Strategy Director: Neil Godber
Senior Planner: Jonny Park
Business Director: Lizzie Alleyne
Account Director: Josephine Yockney
Senior Account Manager: Jemma Western
Media Agency: Jellyfish
Film Production Company: Nice Shirt
Production Company Producer: Richard Martin
Director of Photography & Cinematography: Alex Melman
Post Production: Raised by Wolves
VFW Supervisor: Jo Hollis
Colourist: Vic Parkar
Post-Production Producer: Tareeq Kibaisi
Editors: TenThree
Editor: Quin Williams
Offline Producer: Julian Marshall
Sound: WAVE
Sound Engineer: Tom Heddy
Audio Producer: Beth Tomblin
Stills and Motion Production Company: Curious