Campaign success[edit]
Despite the immense popularity of the campaign, sales of Energizer batteries actually went down during the years that the ads ran. Duracell claimed that 40 percent of its customers thought the campaign was promoting Duracell, not Energizer, but provided no evidence. Speculation has it that TV watchers still associated pink bunnies with Duracell, so the Energizer ads were actually helping their competitor's sales rather than their own.[10]
Legal challenges[edit]
1990 Duracell trademark dispute[edit]
When Energizer's 1988 parody became an advertising success and Energizer trademarked its bunny, Duracell decided to revive the Duracell Bunny campaign and filed for a new United States trademark of its own, citing the original use of the character more than a decade earlier.[15] The dispute resulted in a confidential January 10, 1992 out of court settlement,[16] where Energizer (and its bunny) took exclusive trademark rights in the United States and Canada, and Duracell (and its bunny) took exclusive rights in all other places in the world causing Energizer Bunny to be phased out in most countries being succeeded by Mr. Energizer who appeared in Stop motion advertisements voiced by Carlos Alazraqui (through in certain Latin American countries that keep Energizer Bunny after 1992 and didn't replace him with Mr. Energizer it coexists with Duracell Bunny) [17]
1991 Adolph Coors lawsuit[edit]
In 1991, Energizer Holdings unsuccessfully sued the Adolph Coors Company for copyright and trademark infringement for creating a parody of its Energizer bunny ads.[18]
The advertisement had comedian Leslie Nielsen banging a bass drum while wearing rabbit ears while the announcer said "It keeps growing and growing!" The court eventually sided with Coors noting the obvious facts that the content of the ad is substantially different considering Nielsen was not a toy and he did not run on batteries.[19]
2016 Duracell distribution lawsuit[edit]
In February 2016, Energizer filed a trademark infringement and contract violation lawsuit against Duracell. Energizer alleged that Duracell was using a pink bunny in its advertising in the United States, did not have any trademark rights in the United States in a pink bunny, and had violated an agreement between Energizer and Duracell governing the use of a pink bunny trademark in the U.S.[20] Duracell replied that the cases Energizer cited came from overseas distributors importing packages from abroad, and that Duracell did not have the specific power to stop those distributors from doing so.[21] In November 2017, a United States District court judge threw out most of Energizer's claims in a summary judgement, but leaving the breach of the 1992 territorial contract dispute active with respect to the two companies' bunny trademarks.[22]