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Mascots Vie to Be No. 1 Ad Icon

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"Being in Playboy doesn't hurt your chances to be the St. Pauli Girl," says Dergan, who worked for St. Pauli last year and is now a Fox Sports Net reporter. "You actually make a better product representative."

Even the cleanest of corporate mascots can't help but get involved in a little bit of controversy.

Poppin' Fresh, the Pillsbury Doughboy, made a comeback a few years ago with a noticeable tummy tuck, perhaps to keep his career from going stale. Still, you'll never see him shot from behind, because he's very sensitive about his buns.

Let's just call these mascots products of their environment, and let's take a look at a few.

1. Battery Bunny Wars

The Energizer Bunny keeps going and going and going. But he wasn't the first pink bunny to sell batteries on TV. That honor goes to the forgotten Duracell Bunny. The Energizer Bunny is something of a copycat.

In a 1974 TV commercial, Duracell demonstrated its long-lasting alkaline batteries with a mechanical toy rabbit beating on a drum, racing other battery-powered rabbits, and always winning.

Energizer introduced its own "spokes-hare" in 1989, to take on Duracell, after Duracell's rabbit retired.

At first, Duracell sales went up, apparently because so many consumers associated the pink bunny with Duracell. Now, 15 years later, the Energizer Bunny has starred in 107 commercials, and is now kicking off a new $68 million ad campaign.

And just about every hyperactive newsmaker — from Regis Philbin and John Edwards to Dick Clark and Michael Phelps — is dubbed an "Energizer Bunny."

Who's a Duracell Bunny? Maybe Howard Dean.

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