Advertising
Long before BP gasoline was a mature enough product to need advertising of its own, some of the companies that would later join the BP group were helping to pioneer the medium.
Standard Oil of Ohio (Sohio) launched Perfection Oil – a breakthrough in the home heating market – with an 1899 campaign featuring warmly lit scenes of domestic bliss.
Early 20th century ads for Castrol motor oil took a more forward approach. Castrol’s owner, Charles Wakefield, was among the first to see the marketing potential in sponsorships. When the racers and competitive aviators he sponsored won, his company boasted in ads that they’d done it with Castrol.
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Early 20th century ads for Castrol motor oil took a more forward approach. Castrol’s owner, Charles Wakefield, was among the first to see the marketing potential in sponsorships. When the racers and competitive aviators he sponsored won, his company boasted in ads that they’d done it with Castrol.
Patriotism, pretty pictures, petroleum
The first ads for BP ‘motor spirit’ appeared in the UK in the 1920s, when driving was still mainly a pastime enjoyed by the wealthy. You wouldn’t have come across a BP ad in the mass-market tabloids of the day. Rather, ads for BP showed up where drivers were likely to cast their comfortable gazes, with messages that reflected their ideals: patriotism, for example, and a fascination with the countryside.On the cover of The Autocar, a magazine for car enthusiasts, an early BP ad showed a car full of well-dressed passengers awaiting petrol service from a BP pump at a pretty, shingle-roofed garage. Pink flowering trees and a spare can of BP petrol on the car’s running board foretold a long, satisfying Sunday drive.
On the European continent, the letters ‘BP’ were generally allowed to stand for themselves, but in British ads their implicit Britishness was hard to miss. ‘Buy British Goods, BP: The British Petroleum.’ Companies in the USA also emphasized patriotism. During the 1932 Olympic games, BP heritage company Atlantic Richfield ran a gasoline campaign featuring a red, white and blue US Olympian.
In the 1930s and 40s car ownership in Britain became more affordable. BP advertising took on wider appeal, with eye-catching illustrations to pique new drivers’ imaginations, with ideas for exciting places they might go in their new automobiles.
In the 1930s and 40s car ownership in Britain became more affordable. BP advertising took on wider appeal, with eye-catching illustrations to pique new drivers’ imaginations, with ideas for exciting places they might go in their new automobiles.
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By the 1950s in America, cars and driving were commonplace. Standard Oil of Indiana accentuated quality. ‘You expect more from Standard…’ went the slogan, ‘and you get it.’ And people did get it, so much so that when the company changed its name to Amoco, the slogan did too.
‘Service with a Smurf’
By the 1960s and 70s, service stations in Europe had stiff competition, and the major brands offered some unusual extras to attract custom. BP stations in the Netherlands gave customers a free Smurf figurine with every fuel purchase. The Smurfs, the creation of a Belgian cartoonist, had been enjoying a growing, underground celebrity in Europe.Promotions at BP-owned stations in the UK, New Zealand, Australia and South Africa followed, fanning a sweep of Smurf mania. At times cars backed up at the pumps, with families anxious to fill up and get the latest figurine.
BP commercial, 1980s
Commercials go from humble to modest, by way of special effects
Television brought advertising into the living room, and BP called on well-liked celebrities to do its talking. Stirling Moss, the celebrated British racing driver, became the first BP ‘Superman’, a reference to the popular premium gasoline, BP Super.In the 1970s Castrol hit on the idea of showing how a good motor oil makes an engine run smoothly. A commercial followed a drop of oil across a series of landscapes while Mahler’s Seventh Symphony played in the background.
BP "Man on the street" advertisement
By the early 2000s BP had honed in on the more modest, more human potential that television presented. It ran a series of commercials in the USA, UK, Germany and elsewhere, in which people on the street were invited to give their unscripted thoughts on some of the difficult energy and environmental questions of the day.
