Discarded Amoco Brand Assets the Key to BP’s Future?

Posted by Dale Buss on August 2, 2010 12:00 PM

Thrown on the brand-name scrap heap more than a decade ago, "Amoco" is looking pretty good these days to BP-gas station operators – and perhaps to the parent company itself.

Apparently there are a growing number of BP station owners across the United States who like the idea of bringing back the Amoco moniker, which BP has owned since acquiring the American Oil Co. and all its Amoco assets in 1998.

The switch to a more American brand could be one way for BP’s hard-hit retailers to quell the boycotts that some consumers and activists have launched against the BP brand in the wake of the Gulf of Mexico spill. Most of the 11,000 stations selling BP fuel across the US are independently owned, and they have seen reductions in sales of up to 40 percent in the wake of the disaster. BP has responded by offering distributors cash, reductions in credit-card fees and help with more national advertising. But for some, a total rebrand is looking like a good way to sidestep the slime that’s likely to stick to the BP brand.

The BP name, and its green-and-yellow flower logo, replaced the Amoco name and its blue-and-red torch marque after BP acquired Amoco. But now all things American may be regaining some sway within the British-owned company. American – and Amoco veteran – Robert Dudley will replace the disgraced current CEO of BP, Tony Hayward, on October 1. Dudley can boast of a boyhood in Mississippi and has to date demonstrated a more careful, less tone-deaf approach than Hayward.

And if BP indeed does take the Amoco name and brand out of mothballs, here’s a suggestion for maximizing the value of the move: Don’t spare the red, white and blue in your logo, and make prominent mention of the “American Oil Co.”

More about: Bp, Amoco

Art Heimbach says:

What a sad view and recommendation. In this day and age of transparent corporate brand-windows, what seems like the wisest organizations have realized the sheer folly, short-term-at -best benefits and high potential for longer-term net loss of employing white-washing, green-washing and this sort of red-white-and-blue washing. From the large wave of writings espousing "brand=culture," a simplistic-appearing logo-change (at a stupendous expense) will accomplish little unless the underlying culture is re-invented (and not just the CEO's office-holder). It is unlikely BP could afford to successfully accomplish both transformations, so would it not be wiser to hold on to and show trust in the BP logo investment and spend the saved re-branding-advertising money on an "internal re-branding" through an extensive culture-development program and associated promotion of those efforts?

August 3, 2010 08:21 AM #

dentist wakefield says:

Nice comment.Some BP petrol station owners have discussed switching brand names in a bid to dodge continued backlash from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

August 3, 2010 08:55 AM #

Sam says:

Some basic fact checking wouldn't go amiss here. BP is an international company owned by shareholders. Only 40% of these shareholders are British, 39% are American. BP is just as much an American company as it is a British one.

August 3, 2010 10:47 AM #

Brian says:

This will be tough to do for a few reasons:

1. It's always hard to go back to an old logo when you put so much into branding a company as the "anti-brand" that the old logo represented. BP branded (or attempted to brand itself) as more than a gas company but an energy company (whatever that means) which Amoco was. By switching back, is BP saying that they're just a gas company that doesn't care about the environment again? Wrong message for a company that just screwed up the environment big time.

2. A change at this time will be a lame attempt to try to fool the public and get them to come into their stations and consumers WILL resent that. People aren't dumb. Most of them remember that BP took over Amoco and for the ones that don't remember or know, they'll find out through Facebook or Twitter anyway and then feel like they've been taken. The stations may actually see more people drive past them.

3. Switching the logo may be seen as a sign that BP has given up. Given up trying to right their wrongs. Given up on their branding strategy on being more than petroleum. Given up on standing behind their brand. This never works because branding MUST be consistent so that consumers know what to expect. If you give up the logo, it shows that you don't 100% believe in your brand and your product anymore. If you don't believe it, then why should the public put it in their tanks? No confidence= no sale.

August 9, 2010 02:33 PM #