Panasonic’s Bunny Neuter Promo Jabs Energizer

Oxyride batteries is after the Energizer bunny, launching a public bunny neutering campaign in a bid to outpace its fierce competitor.

The Neuter Your Bunny campaign starts off with a Neuter Your Bunny Day on June 14 in New York City. Five cottontail owners can have their rabbits neutered for free courtesy of Panasonic Battery Corp.’s Oxyride batteries brand. The company will also present a $10,000 donation to the House Rabbit Society, an international nonprofit animal rescue and education organization.

“It takes a brave client to take an approach like this and take risks to help increase awareness for its branding,” said Drew Neisser, CEO, New City-based Renegade Marketing, which developed the campaign and ranked No. 46 in the 2006 PROMO 100. “Certainly, there is no overt statement of competitiveness, but the beauty of the program is it lets consumers discover the idea.”

On Neuter Your Bunny Day, a branded pink ’67 Volkswagen microbus will hit the streets of Manhattan to promote the campaign. New York City-based Fusion PR handles event publicity and p.r.

“This is part of a multi-million dollar campaign,” said Brian Kimberlin, director of consumer marketing at Panasonic. “We’re becoming very aggressive in the battery market, much more than in the past. Panasonic is the only manufacturer in the world that can make Oxyride and…we’re going to invest in the marketplace to build awareness so consumers can reap the benefits of this technology.”

With Oxyride batteries, pet owners can take twice as many pictures of their pets with their digital cameras than with Energizer Max, Kimberlin said. Kimberlin didn’t directly comment on the promotion’s jab at the Energizer bunny but said “consumers can make their own assumptions.”

Secaucus, NJ-based Panasonic launched the Oxyride brand in July 2005. The nickel oxyhydroxide batteries—from which the Oxyride name is derived—promise to deliver more power than alkaline batteries. Since the batteries debuted in the marketplace, the company has unleashed a barrage of promotions to build brand awareness.

At Oxyrideme.com, consumers can play an interactive game using characters called Oxymites and named Bully, Fighter and Helper. Consumers use the Oxymites to zap power and life back to a city in the midst of a blackout before time runs out. Oxyride is also the official battery of the Dew Action Sports Tour, a multi-sport tour that began last year. Consumers can enter a sweepstakes housed on Oxyrideme.com for a chance to win a trip for two to meet motocross athlete Jeremy “Twitch” Stenberg when the Dew Action Sports Tour stops in Orlando, FL, in October. The promotion ends Aug. 31.

For more stories on event marketing
For more stories on games, contests & sweeps