A flashlight business, a trademark and a new battery name.

Energizer’s story starts with a flashlight. English Wikipedia says that in 1896 Conrad Hubert, an immigrant from Russia, founded the American Electrical Novelty and Manufacturing Company in New York to market battery-powered devices. In January 1899, it says, the company obtained a patent for a tubular hand-held “electric device” designed by the inventor David Misell, who assigned it to Hubert’s company. The flashlight and its batteries were sold under the “Ever Ready” trademark.

The trademark soon became the company name. Wikipedia says Hubert renamed the business The American Ever Ready Company in 1905. In 1914 it became part of the National Carbon Company, with Hubert staying on as president, and the trademark was shortened to Eveready. In 1917, National Carbon merged with Union Carbide to form the Union Carbide and Carbon Company. Energizer Holdings tells the same early story on its own “Our Legacy” page, beginning with Hubert and the Ever Ready name.

The Energizer name grew out of a product line. According to English Wikipedia, Eveready’s alkaline battery was sold as the Eveready Alkaline Battery from 1959 to 1968, as the Eveready Alkaline Energizer from 1968 to 1974, and as the Eveready Alkaline Power Cell from 1974. On 1 March 1980, Wikipedia says, it was rebadged under the name Energizer.

Eveready remained the name of the operating company after the change, and Energizer Holdings still lists Eveready among its battery brands today.

Advertising followed the new name closely. Wikipedia lists the actor Robert Conrad as the spokesman for Eveready Alkaline Power Cells from 1977, the slogan “Energized, for life!” in the early 1980s, a 1985 campaign with the gymnast Mary Lou Retton and, in Australia in the late 1980s, ads with Mark “Jacko” Jackson.

Union Carbide, Ralston Purina and an independent company.

The battery business left Union Carbide in 1986. English Wikipedia and Energizer Holdings both say that Union Carbide sold it to Ralston Purina that year. Wikipedia says the division was renamed Eveready Battery Company, Inc. and became a wholly owned subsidiary of Ralston. In 1992, it says, Eveready bought the British Ever Ready Electrical Company from Hanson Trust, bringing a former offshoot of the American business back under common ownership.

Independence came in 2000. According to English Wikipedia, Ralston completed the spin-off of the Eveready business in April 2000, and it was listed on the New York Stock Exchange as Energizer Holdings, Inc., ticker “ENR”, with Eveready Battery Company continuing as a subsidiary. Energizer Holdings has been a public company since 2000.

For a time the company was much broader than batteries. Wikipedia says it bought the Schick and Wilkinson Sword razor brands from Pfizer in 2003 and Playtex in 2007. In April 2014 it announced it would split into two companies, and in 2015 the personal care side became a separate business, Edgewell Personal Care, while Energizer kept batteries and lighting.

It then grew in a new direction. Wikipedia says Energizer bought HandStands, a car fragrance and appearance business, in 2016, and added the Nu Finish brands in 2018. In January 2019 it completed the purchase of Spectrum Brands’ battery and lighting division, which included Rayovac and Varta; Wikipedia says European regulators required the Varta consumer battery business in Europe to be sold, and Energizer kept the Varta brand in Latin America and Asia Pacific. The company’s own site lists its battery brands as Energizer, Eveready, Rayovac and Varta, and its car care brands as including Armor All and STP.

Energizer Holdings says it is headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri; English Wikipedia says the company moved its headquarters to Clayton, Missouri, in November 2024, the same year it bought the naming rights to St. Louis City SC’s stadium, now Energizer Park. On manufacturing, Wikipedia says Energizer has operational facilities in the United States and a plant in Singapore dating from 1946, and that when the Bennington, Vermont, plant was set to close in 2019, production moved to Portage, Wisconsin.

Design and documentation.

The brands in this group all make or sell batteries, from the small cells that go into torches, remote controls and toys to the heavy batteries that start cars, boats and trucks. Battery brands in general sit at many different points in the trade: some names belong to the company that makes the cells, some are owned by retailers or parts chains, and some are licensed to different companies in different parts of the world.

A battery brand’s identity is usually carried less by the product itself than by its packaging, its colours, its slogans and sometimes a mascot, because one sealed case looks much like another. Behind the label, the company that owns the name and the factory that builds the battery may have changed several times. That makes the plain questions worth asking: who started the brand, who owns it now, and who actually makes the batteries.

Each guide separates what independent sources record from what the company says about itself — its founding story, its owners over time, where its batteries are made and how its packaging has changed — and marks plainly what rests only on the company’s own word.

Sunglasses, flip-flops and a bass drum.

The Energizer Bunny is the brand’s mascot in North America. English Wikipedia describes it as a pink mechanical toy rabbit with an Energizer battery, wearing sunglasses and blue and black striped flip-flops, beating a bass drum that bears the Energizer logo.

It began as a parody. Wikipedia says the first Energizer Bunny commercial was broadcast on United States television in 1988, produced by DDB Needham Worldwide, and opened as a direct send-up of Duracell’s 1973 “Drumming Bunny” advertisement. Midway through, the Energizer rabbit marched into the frame with its drum. Energizer Holdings’ own legacy timeline lists the bunny’s television debut under 1989. Wikipedia says the creative team at DDB Chicago chose the special effects company All Effects to build the original remote-controlled prop.

Interruption became the format. Wikipedia says later spots showed the bunny walking off its own set and through convincing commercials for invented products, because it was “still going”. From 1993 to 1995, Energizer ran ads around a fictional rival battery called Supervolt, whose villains failed when their own batteries ran out. In 1991, Wikipedia says, the bunny moved into print advertising.

The rabbit has been redrawn. In September 2016, according to Wikipedia, Energizer moved its advertising to the agency Camp+King and introduced a slimmer bunny with more facial expression. Outside the United States and Canada, Wikipedia says, the company uses a different mascot: Mr. Energizer, an animated AA battery. English Wikipedia says a dispute with Duracell over the two pink rabbits ended in a confidential settlement on 10 January 1992, giving Energizer the rights in the United States and Canada.

The name also travels beyond batteries. Wikipedia says the Energizer name has been licensed to Avenir Telecom for mobile phones and accessories, and that both Eveready and Energizer marks are licensed to Pep Boys for its own car batteries.

For a design guide, Energizer shows how a mascot built as a joke at a rival’s expense can become the main carrier of a brand, outlasting slogans, spokespeople and even its owners. Compare Duracell, whose drumming rabbit dates from 1973, and Rayovac, an American battery brand Energizer has owned since 2019. For this guide we use a near-black, a bright green and a pink with a condensed sans-serif, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

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