OBJECTIVES

H & K’s client Duracell were looking to achieve national coverage for their Big Battery Hunt initiative, hammering home the initiative’s achievements so far and drawing attention to ‘the elephant in the room’ of the improper disposal of batteries happening worldwide, causing the toxic chemicals they contain to contaminate soil and water. The Big Battery Hunt as an educational and inclusive initiative to inspire a more eco-friendly generation.

Through their battery recycling initiative, Duracell aim to collect a total of 250 tonnes of batteries by June, and wanted this to be reflected within the key messaging of the campaign. Coming to us with the initial hook of 250 tonnes of batteries being the equivalent to 50 African elephants, Duracell needed a creative idea that visualised this issue, making it more engaging and newsworthy to a national audience.

SUMMARY

Duracell’s Big Battery Hunt 2019 is a pro-recycling initiative launched with the National Schools Partnership, encouraging pupils across the UK to collect used batteries for recycling. Too often the batteries are simply thrown away and eventually dumped in ever expanding landfills. Lead acid and nickel-cadmium batteries are very toxic and can cause contamination of soil and water. By installing specialist battery waste containers in participating schools, Duracell’s Big Battery Hunt has seen over 7 million batteries collected in 2019 so far and they are still pouring in! To bring the Big Battery Hunt to the nation’s attention, we collaborated with Hill & Knowlton Strategies to create a life-sized elephant – made up of 30,000 used batteries – showcasing the number dumped in landfill every year. The elephant will be on show in Hanwell Zoo for the duration of the summer.

49

Pieces of coverage

3M

Estimated coverage views

3.25k

Social shares

270k

Video views

"The results of the PR stunt we collaborated with 72point on were amazing and the "icing on the cake" for our national Duracell campaign. National coverage was always a key objective but the stars aligned at the end and we managed to secure fantastic coverage at the start of the summer holidays which was the point of the activity. The pictures were top quality and the results were brilliant."

Hill and Knowlton

Results

The striking visual concept of the life-sized elephant ensured that the project demanded attention across various media outlets and succeeded in raising national awareness of Duracell’s initiative, landing a total of 49 pieces of coverage including impressive hits across digital and print media outlets such as Star, Sun, iNews, Mirror, Independent, Express and more. The campaign visually communicated the importance of putting young people at the heart of this initiative, with accompanying photographs of school children interacting with the life-sized battery elephant at Hanwell Zoo.

1M REACH

We also ensured the project made an impact on social media, with the social edit achieving 270K views, and 1M reach, highlighting our multi-platform approach to the campaign with content spanning video, news copy and highly-engaging photographs of the elephant to accompany the press release.

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