Exxon Victorious

What a heavy burden is a name that has become too famous.

--Voltaire

Changing the name of a well-known consumer product is one of marketing's most dangerous and delicate tasks. One major misstep can confuse consumers and cause sales to plunge. Nevertheless, Standard Oil Co. (New Jersey) decided last May to gather all its products, its subsidiaries and its corporate title under the single new name of Exxon, a less than lyrical word produced by a computer and meaning nothing at all. Now, after an exquisitely orchestrated campaign of advertising and sign changing, Exxon Corp. is well on its way to bringing off one of the most extensive, expensive and successful name changes in marketing history.

The switch began in July when the first of the company's 25,000 U.S. gas stations began putting up Exxon signs to replace the firm's other brand names: Esso, Humble and Enco. To fill its need for new signs (along with the big board, each station requires about 50 smaller ones for gas pumps and such), Exxon had to parcel the work among 30 manufacturers. In addition, the new trademark had to be affixed to 11 million credit cards, 22,000 oil wells and 18,000 buildings, plus innumerable employee identification badges, truck mud-flaps and pencils. The company expects to complete the sign changeover by early April at an estimated cost of $100 million.

Tiger. As Exxon signs sprouted along highways, the company began a bouncy $25 million advertising campaign to gain public acceptance for its new name. Exxon brought the Esso tiger back into its ads with the slogan: "We're changing our name, but not our stripes." In one of the drive's most successful commercials, the tiger is summoned back to duty from the "Advertising Hall of Fame" and is given a banzai by such sales stars as Speedy Alka-Seltzer, Borden's Elsie the Cow and Planters' Mr. Peanut.

Some of the franchised station owners felt a strong loyalty to their old brand names. To win them over, the company held a series of conventions. "It was a risky situation because we didn't want them to switch to some other company," explains an Exxon executive. In the end, Exxon reports, not a single dealer left the corporate fold because of the name change. Confusion inside the Exxon board room was so great that at one point directors who let slip the name of an old brand like Enco or Humble had to pay a 25-c- fine into small tiger-shaped banks.

Why such a troublesome and expensive switch? The main reason is that since the breakup of Standard Oil in 1911, no company can use the name Standard nationally--not even the name Esso, which comes from S.O. Jersey Standard used Esso in the East, Humble in Ohio and Enco elsewhere. With the Exxon name the company can eliminate wasteful overlap in production and promotion costs.

Exxon officials are more than satisfied with the way things have gone. Despite the name change, the company's revenues last year rose almost 9% over 1971. One sure sign that Exxon has arrived as a brand name is that it has become the butt of cartoonists' jokes. For example, a cartoon in Mad magazine shows a picture of the White House with a sign overhead emblazoned Nixxon. The caption: "But it's still the same old gas."

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