In this silly spot for Energizer EcoAdvanced batteries, a boy in a garage invents a cardboard box that “takes worn out things and makes them better”, and he demonstrates it to his friends by pushing in an old rusty tricycle that comes out the other end as a big honking three-wheeled motorcycle for the kids to illegally ride and kill themselves on. (It is running when it emerges from the cardboard box, generating toxic carbon monoxide fumes inside a garage where children are playing: very irresponsible!) Then the kids ask what else he’s got to use the machine on, and so the kid inserts an old plastic Apatosaurus (or Diplodocus, or some such dinosaur), and it bursts out the other side as an enormous, real live dinosaur, smashing through the garage roof and roaring at the children. Well, the children are suitably impressed until the dinosaur eats them, and the parents run outside to witness the costly devastation to their home, swearing vengeance upon their son in the form of a long, perhaps permanent grounding, but soon incur the wrath of the dinosaur, which eats them too. And now, with a taste for human flesh and a penchant for destroying buildings, the dinosaur goes on a rampage, destroying the city. And the army would intervene and kill the dinosaur like in 1950s sci-fi/horror movies, but animal rights protesters show up and form a human chain to protect the beast as it decimates the country’s population and devastates the nation’s buildings and infrastructure. And it’s all been made possible by Energizer’s new EcoAdvanced batteries! Yea! And, um; oh, the humanity?
Oh, wait; um, I think I got carried away there, and the dinosaur only ruins the kid’s home and roars at the kids. Or at least that’s all we’re allowed to see before the inevitable monster movie-style rampage. (I have seen the 1925 silent movie The Lost World, so I am familiar with this type of scenario.) Oh, and the kid being grounded for life, if not disowned altogether for destroying the family home.
Actually, the spot is fun and whimsical, but it seems a bit destructive too. Will the Energizer batteries, after they emerge from the box, become giant monster batteries that shoot electricity and kill by high voltage electrocutions? That would be awesome. (Can your battery do that? Oh, wait; that might be another company’s slogan.)
In the next ad in this campaign, the kid should put a plastic T Rex through the box and make a giant pet T Rex he uses to eat all the kids who bully him by calling him a nerd and a geek for all the groundbreaking scientific research he is doing in his garage. Oh, and have it attack the city too, I suppose…
Here’s the advanced Apatosaurus ad:
