Duracell - Community Awareness Campaign
challenge
South Australia’s fire services wanted to raise awareness that smoke alarms are the most important battery-operated device in a household. All too frequently, SA fire services witness the devastation and loss that household fires cause despite the installation of a smoke alarm. Research revealed this was due to expired batteries or instances where smoke alarms had not been fitted with a battery.
The challenge for the SA Metropolitan Fire Service (SAMFS) and the Country Fire Service (CFS) was to raise public awareness of the issue and encourage people to regularly replace smoke alarm batteries with long-lasting alkaline batteries. As a major manufacturer of such batteries, Duracell (part of Gillette Australia Pty Ltd) was keen to work with the fire services and ensure their batteries were the product of choice.
solution
Sponsored by Duracell, a campaign was developed with the theme, Change your clock, change your smoke alarm battery. It ran for the first time in SA in 2002 and annually since that time, in conjunction with the end of daylight saving. The fire safety message was communicated to the target audience – including families, the elderly, consumers, household purchasers, carers and community groups – by a combination of advertising and public relations. A detailed strategy was developed using key messages, target media and genuine news angles.
The campaign focused on fire safety messages and the fire services rather than Duracell. The company donated product to the fire services, enabling them to assist people who were not otherwise able to change their smoke alarm batteries. Porter Novelli worked with SAMFS and CFS to promote the campaign through editorial in SA metropolitan, suburban and regional media outlets including print, radio, television and online.
The campaign was launched two weeks prior to the end of daylight saving to ensure the public had time to purchase and change their smoke alarm battery on the key date at the end of March.
results
Despite expectations that there may be some media ‘fatigue’ with the concept after several years and that incremental increases in sales would slow compared with its huge initial impact, the campaign continues to break new ground in media coverage and consumer response.
Since the initial campaign in 2002, the sales of Duracell 9V batteries during the two weeks of the campaign has risen year on year, equating to a cumulative increase of 175.3% in 2007.
In recent years the campaign has been launched in an extremely competitive media environment, with many major events being held during the period. In 2007, the strategy of working in conjunction with the World Police & Fire Games in Adelaide proved highly effective, with the campaign experiencing its most successful year to date. More than 100 ‘exposures’ across targeted broadcast and print media outlets in Adelaide and regional South Australia were achieved, and sales of 9V batteries in South Australia increased by 33% over 2006 results during the campaign period.
