Duracell + Deafness + Super Bowl XLVIII = Inbound Marketing
Written by Dylan Langei
On February 2nd, 2014 the Seattle Seahawks blew out the Denver Broncos 43-8 in Super Bowl XLVIII to claim their first ever Super Bowl title in franchise history. The showdown between the Seahawks' number one defense and the Broncos' number one offense was the most-watched program in U.S. history with 111.5 million viewers. According to experts, the Seahawks were the underdogs going into the championship game, but clearly proved that offense merely sells tickets and defense wins championships.
During the road to this monumental victory, Duracell saw an opportunity to leverage this emotional path by releasing a commercial featuring deaf Seattle Seahawk Fullback, Derrick Coleman. According to "Inbound" by Marketo, it can actually be quite challenging to get noticed during a big event, like a Super Bowl win. To overcome this challenge and adequately pursue inbound marketing, a company must create content that is unique with a fresh point of view. With this in mind, Duracell created the Trust Your Power (#TrustYourPower) campaign.
The Trust Your Power commercial is very emotional and inspiring, while also providing content that is relevant to Duracell's prospective buyers. Let's be honest, batteries are not all that sexy or cool, but what they provide is remarkable. By featuring an athlete that relies on Duracell's products to overcome his lifelong challenge of deafness and achieve his greatest aspiration of playing in the NFL, valuable content is created. Through this content, Duracell reminded prospective clients how important batteries really are. In three weeks, the 60-second commercial went viral and had 13 million views alone on YouTube. This inbound marketing strategy clearly made its mark by creating such intriguing content that millions of people felt it was worth sharing via social media outlets. Now let me remind you, Derrick Coleman is not some hot shot NFL player like Tom Brady or Peyton Manning who demands millions of dollars for commercial appearances and endorsement deals. Instead, Duracell targeted a no name player who had overcome severe challenges in part because Duracell powered his hearing aids. Trust Your Power is literally the epitome of inbound marketing - inspiring content that is worth sharing, unobtrusive, and focused on prospects' problems and concerns rather than the product or solution. Through the Trust Your Power campaign, Duracell successfully leveraged the miraculous story of Derrick Coleman and the Super Bowl run of the Seattle Seahawks to pursue inbound marketing. BOOM, there you have it folks, inbound marketing.
