The following is what amounts to a twenty-two page research paper that discusses the current methods in which corporate America uses persuasion tactics in the media, in advertising, in the marketing of their products, in crisis situations, and most importantly, when trying to sway public opinion. Contained is a somewhat brief history of Exxon, a short piece on the Exxon Valdez disaster, and a discussion of how Exxon uses elements of persuasion while trying to bolster their tarnished image. The paper finishes with a lengthy discussion of current trends in the corporate world.
Saving the Tiger
Exxon. When you think of Exxon, what thoughts enter your mind? Do you think
of a friendly neighborhood service station where good ole Bob the mechanic knows you
by your name? A place where you can fill your car up and grab an icy-cold Coca-Cola as
you pick up a few quick supplies while on your way home? Or instead do you picture a
money-hungry, resource-depleting corporate power that is harmful to the environment
as well as to the welfare of small, independently owned “Mom-and-Pop” service stations
all across the country?
Image plays a huge role in determining how people perceive the operations of
the petroleum industry. The way people act on such perceptions affect the long term
survival of corporations. Image could be the determining factor that subconsciously
persuades you to drive into a sparkly new, state of the art Exxon station or the privately
owned and operated “Mom-and-Pop” service station on the opposite side of the road.
What actually makes up the image of the Exxon service station of the 90s? Is the deciding factor the Americana roots and the pride of seeing the red, white and
blue that intuitively begs you to “put a tiger in your tank,” or is the turn-off of big
business and corporate snootiness enough to make you drive on down the road in search of the locally-owned operations?
During this article, I am going to examine Exxon as a corporate entity and focus on the
strategies that the Exxon Corporation implements in order to persuade a potential
customer to use Exxon gasoline and their products over their rivals. I will devote a portion of this article examining the way Exxon handled the Valdez oil spill in 1989 and the
image rebuilding that has occurred thereafter. I will also take a look at current trends in
the petroleum industry and how corporations attempt to differentiate themselves in the
much rivalled petroleum industry.
The roots of the Exxon Corporation were planted in 1882 by John Rockefeller as
Standard Oil Company. The 1880s was a period of growth for America as the railroad
transportation industry was booming and this brought goods and transportation to local
economies which led to technological growth and industrial expansion. People were
prosperous which led to them spend money like never before while the rich sat back and
got richer and richer. Rockefeller was a great visionary and created a virtual monopoly
for Standard Oil Company by controlling the entire process of oil refinement. Through
means of vertical integration, he owned and controlled every step of the oil production
process from extraction right up to the point of sale to the consumer. He bought oil
fields, oil refineries, pipelines, railroads, ships, barrels and gas stations. The Federal
Government stepped in to stop his spreading Standard Oil empire and virtual
stranglehold on the U.S. economy in 1911 because if something was to happen to
Standard Oil, the entire U.S. economy could be at risk of collapsing. So to stop the
spread of Standard Oil, the government regulated gasoline and oil prices and set
regulations on the percentage of ownership a corporation can have in the total oil
refinement process.1
The regulation period lasted until the 1950s. During the regulation period, family
owned gas stations had popped up all over the country. The new interstate highway
system increased the need for gas at more easily accessible locations. The thoughts of
driving any long distance meant visiting a gas station with a couple of pumps out front
next to the road and perhaps a family living upstairs or beside the gas station. After
deregulation, Exxon, then known as Esso, bought up 83% of all privately owned gas
stations across the country with the vast amount of wealth that the corporation was forced to sit on
during the regulation period. After purchasing these gas stations, Esso lowered fuel prices
to the cost of production and sometimes below their cost of production in hopes of
either forcing the remaining gas stations to switch to Esso gas products or close the
competing business altogether by losing customers to lower gas prices at competing Esso
gas stations.2 The service station would never be the same again as Esso continued to
grow.
In attempts to lure people in off the bustling highways of America, the new Exxon service station offered not only gas but refreshments as well - something virtually unheard of at the time. Stopping to get gas at an Exxon gas station meant that you didn’t need to stop further down the road for refreshment, so convenience became a selling point for them. This is where the first signs of differentiation came from. The thought of making yourself different from competitors by offering products and services is a key strategy in being successful when competition is fierce. Exxon grew, as other petroleum producers did, through the 1950s and 60s and in 1972 Exxon became one of the world's first multinational corporation. Today, the Exxon Corporation continues to be a world leader in profitability.
As is the case with most global corporations, public image is a big part of the
overall business. If a global corporation can not maintain a positive public image, the
future of the business will be uncertain; especially in such an undifferentiated market as
the petroleum industry. One of the biggest public relations blunders in the history of the
corporate world was in March of 1989.
The Exxon Valdez oil spill in Prince William Sound, Alaska, was front page
material for several months afterward as media coverage of the disaster was tremendous.
Even one year after the spill, an Exxon critic claimed in The Wall Street Journal, “The
name Exxon has become a household word for environmental irresponsibility.”3 This
was obviously salt in the wounds for Exxon, which had spent well over one billion
dollars on cleanup activities between the disaster in March and November of 1989. What
else could they do? They spent lots of money on cleanup, they tried to spread positive
messages in the media. However, for Exxon, being competitive became very difficult as every newscast in America, and the world for that matter, showed pictures of
flightless, oil-coated birds, oil-slicked otters and blackened beaches with the little red, white, and
blue Exxon logo in the corner of every television screen.
Although nobody would dispute the newsworthiness of the Exxon Valdez
disaster, some might be surprised that the crisis had remained a newsworthy event for so
long. Since the day of the resolution of the Valdez’s assumed-drunk captain’s trial, the
Exxon Corporation has had more than 200 civil lawsuits filed against them.4 From
March of 1989 to March of 1990, lawsuits ranged from local business people in Alaska
complaining of lost wages to consumers in California seeking damages for gasoline price
hikes. Even chiropractors in Alaska claimed they lost business as a result of out of work
fishermen having fewer backaches to be remedied.5 In an event such as this, any
publicity was bad publicity because all these negative connotations had the name
“Exxon” attached to them.
In an attempt to deflect such bad publicity, Exxon repeatedly brought the Valdez’s
captain into court as a way to shield themselves from public scrutiny. This is a well
intended ploy because after all Exxon did not that cause the oil spill, the bad guy was the
accused-drunken captain of the tanker - blame everything on him! Obviously, anytime Exxon
goes to court the corporation gets media attention, so any publicity that points the blame on someone
other than the corporate entity that is, in Exxon’s eyes, better publicity. That is
one of the reasons that the Valdez has been remembered so long after the fact. Since
1989 there have been an average of five hundred oil tankers go aground or leak per year
since the Exxon Valdez.6 Can you name more than one that has occurred in the eight
years since the Valdez? The Exxon Valdez spill was not the largest oil spill in
history. In fact, in terms of world’s worst spills, the Valdez ranks thirtieth place! The distinction of the world’s
largest spill is held by the Amoco Cadiz when in 1978 the tanker discharged thirty times the amount of
the Valdez - sixty-eight million gallons - into the Bay of Biscay, near Portsail, France.7
No matter what one person was at fault, Exxon was ultimately responsible; the tanker was Exxon’s. They hired the captain of the Valdez and they knew of the history of
alcohol abuse that plagued his past. The captain, Joseph Hazelwood, had pled guilty to
drunk driving in New York state during 1984 and 1985. He had completed Exxon’s own
alcohol rehabilitation program during his tenure at Exxon. While the Coast Guard tested
his blood-alcohol content ten hours after the spill and found him legally drunk, though
crewmates said he was not drinking while at the helm. Perhaps he was drinking in the
hours after the incident because there was no evidence of alcohol on board the Valdez
nor were there any evidence that the crew had been drinking. In time, a jury would find
that Hazelwood was not intoxicated and he was found innocent of all but one minor
charge, a misdemeanor - negligent discharge of petroleum.8
Now with the Hazelwood situation behind them, Exxon had the daunting task of
cleaning up the beaches and repairing its almost non-existent positive public image.
Looking with hindsight at the disaster, many public relations experts hold up the Valdez
situation as a prime example of what not to do in a major crisis situation. For example,
Exxon’s reaction, or lack thereof, violated the basic rule of successful crisis management:
quick and decisive action. A statement from the CEO wasn’t given for six days “and then
it was only to dispatch the chief of Exxon’s shipping division and the president of
Exxon’s USA to do his dirty work on the front lines in Alaska.”9
In his previous three years as CEO of Exxon, Lawrence G. Rawl won praise for his
management ability. He was a cost-cutter with a low-key management style with a great
ability to delegate authority. Yet in the days following the spill, Rawl’s management
values did not serve him well in the public eye. He came across as cranky, invisible,
wishy-washy and defensive - everything you don’t want your CEO to be.10 When Rawl
finally met the press, he blamed the Coast Guard and Alaskan officials for taking what he
perceived as too much time beginning the clean up of the spill by saying, “I don’t want
to point fingers, but we’re getting a bad rap on that delay.” When later questioned
about details of the cleanup plan, Rawl said "it wasn’t my job to know the details." That
statement that was perhaps technically correct in Rawl’s mind but strategically disastrous
to the corporation. In the public’s mind, Rawl and Exxon were interchangeable. The
person Exxon displayed to the public was Rawl’s closed, defensive stance. When 10,000
Exxon credit customers dipped their credit cards in oil, sealed them in Baggies, and
mailed them back to Exxon, they didn’t do so only because a ship accidentally ran
aground in Alaska. They did so because the public face of Exxon symbolized everything
evil about big business: arrogance, irresponsibility and greed.11 For all practical purposes,
to the public, Exxon was Rawl because that is the only association that the viewing
public had to any person at the Exxon Corporation.
As seen in the Valdez oil spill, public opinion forms very quickly and
organizations facing a crisis have a very narrow window of opportunity to sway public
opinion. The public can be very forgiving or the public can be condemning based solely on an
institution’s initial response.12 Once public opinion is established, opinions are very hard
to change; much to the definition of Social Judgement Theories of persuasion. The day of the
spill, people wanted to know exactly what happened and they wanted to know what
Exxon was going to do about the worsening situation. Most importantly, they wanted to
know now. From the beginning, Exxon balked at the media’s questions, and each
passing hour was costing precious time as animals were dying and the world’s water was
being polluted. People in the media that had no answers looked for possible answers
themselves and the week long delay in making a public response was bad for Exxon.
Even after a week’s time, both of Exxon’s official statements contradicted each other,
thus offering no real explanation of the disaster or Exxon’s degree of responsibility. Basically,
Rawl settled for an image of indifference, so the media had no choice but to make the
Exxon Corporation guilty by default.
Another critical element of successful crisis management is an institution’s
willingness to rectify the situation. Try to get the institution, or the corporation in this
case, to make matters better - or at least try - and do so in the media’s eye for the action to have
the most impact to the most people.13 Despite the fact that in eight years Exxon has
spent nearly three billion dollars on cleanup activities, the slow efforts portrayed as an
uncaring, money-driven corporation. Exxon never seemingly has been concerned with
public relations. In fact, the company’s official stance was that they didn’t really care about
public relations. Exxon had more important things to worry about, like cleaning up the spill
and making sure this type of thing doesn’t happen again. One has to wonder if this
type of approach really was the way that Exxon intended to handle the public relations
situation or if this was the type that most closely suited the way they had handled the
situation up to that particular point? Many times, the ability to restore a corporation’s
reputation after a crisis depends on how well that corporation handles the event.
Regardless of which was the intended strategy, Exxon ended up with a public relations
stance that was very transparent and the situation was played out in the media only
further infuriated the public and press.
A couple examples of attempts at early public image boosting that ended
up backfiring include a media pay-off and a skewed company-produced video that
recorded the cleanup progress. Exxon offered to reimburse an Alaskan Public Radio
station for expenses the station incurred while covering the spill. The total amounted to
a little over $32,000 and was seen as a not-so-subtle bribe to everyone except Exxon
themselves. Another time, a crew of cameramen were filming workers that were cleaning
up the oil-soiled beaches and spent great amounts of time on a relatively pristine strip of
sandy beach where the oil had virtually been swept back into the ocean on its own. An
Alaskan official reported that he watched the film crews scatter to less attractive areas of
the beach as news media arrived to cover the Exxon people’s taping.14
As bad as the Valdez disaster was, Exxon made five billion dollars of revenue
during the 1989 operating year. Of that, they spent three billion over the next several
years on the clean up. During the cleanup, Exxon employed the assistance of 12,000
people and 1,385 ships and planes. They recovered a little over 2.6 million gallons of oil
from Prince William Sound over the cleanup period. The estimated number of dead
birds was 33,126 along with 138 eagles and 980 otters. There was probably not a news
publication or newscast in America that did not, at one time or another, damage the
image of Exxon. What is ironic about the situation is the costs that Exxon incurred were
by and large more than what one would expect in operating a cleanup as vast as this.
Even though the total expenditures were probably more than one could expect, the
black eye in public was as great and as lasting as probably any other in American
history.15
Exxon tried to counter the negative television news coverage by issuing dozens of
video news releases to every television station in the United States and in most of
Canada. These press releases gave accounts of Exxon’s cleanup efforts. The company also
turned to publishing a paid advertisement in over one hundred major North American
newspapers and magazines. In the advertisement, a public apology was made by CEO Rawl and he
promised that Exxon would pay for all direct cleanup costs and meet obligations to those
people suffering from the spill. Through all their efforts, many people saw past the
apology and felt all the ink was not enough.16
As somewhat anticipated, word of a nationwide boycott of Exxon gasoline was
spreading. To offset this, Exxon took out full-page newspaper ads that read, “Most
Exxon stations are privately owed. The oil spill in Alaska was not their fault” and that a
boycott would not help clean up the oil spill but “it is going to hurt a lot of small
businesses in your community - and their families and their employees” if a boycott
occurred.17 What else can consumers do to show their displeasure without hurting the
welfare of people in their community? The only place for most consumers was to avoid
all Exxon products and the only place to do that was at their local Exxon gas stations. Six
states had legislation to endorse the boycott. Some gas stations in early May 1989
reported sales decreases of thirty percent. At Exxon headquarters in Houston, 17,000
credit card accounts were cancelled.18 The remainder of that year, studies show that
Exxon reported a 17% loss of sales and during that operating year reported negative
profits, the first in the company’s history.19
So what can a global corporation such as Exxon do to rebuild after a catastrophic
incident such as this. More importantly, what can Exxon do to reinstate consumer
confidence and return to profitability once again? What can a corporation do to regain the solid image which has taken over one hundred years to build, only to be wiped
clean in a matter of hours?
“First things first”, the saying goes, and when major changes need to be made
they take place from the top down. In 1993, after most of the fallout of the Valdez
catastrophe had cleared, CEO Lawrence Rawl was asked to step down to make room
for, then President of Esso International, Lee Raymond to take over as CEO of Exxon
Corporation. With a Chemical Engineering background, he is the first person to ever sit
atop Exxon with a Doctorate in any field.20 The first change that was implemented was
an improvement in tanker design. Exxon has now replaced ninety-eight percent of all their once single-hulled ships with new double-hulled tankers. The entire petroleum
transportation industry is following this move. All of this has taken place at a faster pace
than what would have occurred.21 Since his takeover, Raymond has turned Exxon into a
well-tuned, money-making machine by ultimately cutting costs and reinvesting money
back into the corporation. The remainder of this article will discuss the six main points
that Exxon has used to improve their image and attempt to persuade consumers to use
their products.
The first, and most mass-effective, means of image rebuilding is the push for what
has become known as “Green Marketing”. The basic concept of Green Marketing is
trying to appeal to the growing numbers of “earth-friendly” consumers. Making a move
to become more earth-friendly has become the goal of most global corporations in the
1990s. Most tactics that Exxon uses in image rebuilding falls under the
umbrella term of Green Marketing because most of the efforts they use are presented
with the premise of environmental concern. From all industry standpoints we see
corporations advertising the thoughts of earth friendliness, as a 1992 poll found that
consumer concern for the environment is growing and not abating.22 Anything a
corporation can use to push their company’s involvement in the Green Movement is
emphasized to make a competitive edge in the marketplace. To name recent marketers
of the green image, we can quickly look at a few short examples of Starbucks coffee, Ben
and Jerry’s ice cream and The Body Shop.
Starbucks Coffee is a Seattle-based coffee retailer which sources coffee beans from
export houses in Guatemala. On the home front they are a values-driven corporation
that prides itself on thoughts of earth friendliness, making considerable donations to
worthwhile domestic charities while receiving accolades such as the International Human
Rights Award from the Council on Economic Priorities. However, an affluent customer
base never sees the fact that in order for a Guatemalan worker to buy just one pound of
Starbucks’ coffee, that worker would have to work five days while picking over five
hundred pounds of coffee. Also, you never see the fact that in Starbucks’ break-neck
expansion efforts, they are targeting the “Mom-and-Pop” coffee shops along the way.23
Sounds familiar to someone that knows a bit of Exxon history.
Other forms of Green Marketing are not quite so serious in the humanitarian
sense as they are to just try to hoodwink consumers. Ben And Jerry’s ice cream, for all
their eco-friendly ice creams, sources most all their Brazil nuts from Latin America and
uses those nuts as a major selling point even though they are taking away from the Latin
American environment and not returning any of the profits.24 The Body Shop has an
image of being a caring, natural company that produces high-quality body care products.
They have developed a wide range of products, similar to those of their competitors,
only they have marketed them in simple packaging to relate the concept of
environmental friendliness. Focused on Green Marketing, this packaging strategy not
only appeals to the green conscious consumer but also saves the corporation money by
the simple, no frills packaging.25
The goal of stating those examples was not to air dirty laundry but to bring light
to the fact that many corporations use Green Marketing strategies to perhaps hide their
guilty conscious. They may also use the cover of Green Marketing as a form of
persuasion to accentuate their products and to create a niche to help market their goods
or services. Though considered good business practice to do these thing to help market and sell
a product, it's another to do such a thing while hiding the behind-the-scenes facts in
order to deceive the buying public. One major contribution to the environment that
Exxon is a major player in is the Save The Tiger Foundation.
Exxon Corporation, in 1996, became one of the largest protectors of any
endangered species when the corporation launched a five-year, five million dollar campaign to help
save the world's tigers from extinction. Wildlife conservationists agree the remaining
7,500 or so tigers in the wild stand on the brink of extinction. Those five tigers being the
Siberian Tiger, South China Tiger, Bengal Tiger, Indochinese Tiger and Sumatran Tiger.26
Exxon and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation last year set up the Save the Tiger
Fund. This fund, along with an aggressive advertising campaign launched on April 5 of
this year is an effort to improve Exxon’s tainted corporate image as being more
eco-friendly. A petroleum industry representative said that “it’s necessary to take steps to
avoid any negative feelings by consumers.”27 Because the tiger has long been an icon of
the Exxon brand, by way of the “Put a tiger in your tank” slogan, this ties in nicely with
the Save the Tiger Foundation and seems to be quite ironic. This leads one to wonder if
Exxon’s icon was a whale or an eagle, would the tigers be forgotten? With the support of
five million dollars over five years to tiger conservation projects around the world, the pledge ranks among the largest the corporation has ever made, which is only a small
part of Exxon's contributions to charities and schools across the country.28
In the field of Education and the Arts, Exxon has found a strong financial
commitment. Exxon’s worldwide contributions in 1996 totaled almost 54.8 million
dollars and out of that, about 41.7 million dollars stayed in the U.S. and about 13 million
dollars landed in other countries. Even though “Exxon has never tied its support of the
arts to any measurable marketing goals”,29 they are quickly discovering the advantages
of using their ties with the artistic community as a form of public relations and consumer
and industrial marketing. Exxon Corporation became only the second corporation to
ever receive the President’s Award in recognition of its support of the arts by giving to
many worthwhile philanthropic causes. Some of these include underwriting many
projects with the Public Broadcasting System such as “Great Performances” and “Live
from Lincoln Center”. Exxon continues support of the New York based Young
Playwrights Festival and Composers in Residence as a showcase for young contemporary
composers and their music.30
As nice and caring as this may sound, there is a business aspect to be considered.
The arts organizations are concerned about their image to patrons and the corporations
are concerned about the welfare of their stockholders. In turn, the arts organizations
realize that they need the corporate support to keep their doors open and corporations
are realizing the tremendous marketing potential because in return, they are gaining an
extremely influential upscale audience.31 In the education scene, Exxon made a one
million dollar grant to MIT to support a comprehensive study of global climate change
and how global warming affects the economic and political environment.32 Again, anything positive
that Exxon can associate their brand with is a push in the direction of image improvement.
Product differentiation is what marketing and selling is all about. The question
Exxon must ask themselves is how can they make a product that is different than what
the other petroleum producers make? Of course, that is the big question for corporate survival in any industry. Even though that subject has been touched on earlier
in this article, a more detailed explanation is to follow in order to illustrate two recent
ways Exxon has tried to differentiate it’s product, which is mainly petroleum products,
from the rest of the industry. Afterall, if Exxon can persuade the consumer that their
brand of gasoline is superior, future growth will have no boundaries.
Even though there are countless petroleum producers in the world fighting over
the sluggish market share of a common product, one thing remains the same: gas is gas.
Even though suppliers have higher octanes of gasoline and some have detergent
additives to make slight differentiation, any type of gas will do the same thing that the
others brands will - make engines operate. The apparent lack of switching costs provide a
challenge to gasoline marketers because the consumer has virtually no
reason to stay with one particular brand of gasoline. For the most part, consumers do not care where they purchase gas. If consumers purchase gas at different
companies each time, basically nothing is lost by the consumer, thus, the low switching
cost. One attempt at product differentiation and an effort to create a switching cost that
has seemingly blown up in Exxon’s face is the recent advertising claim that Exxon 93
Supreme gasoline will make engines run cleaner and more efficiently which will
ultimately lead to less maintenance costs for the consumer.
As taken from the Los Angeles Times, “The Federal Trade Commission accused
Exxon of misleading consumers by claiming that switching to its gasoline, particularly
Exxon 93 Supreme, would make engines run cleaner and significantly reduce
maintenance costs. The FTC said that Exxon has failed to substantiate those claims, made
in television and radio ads.”33 The FTC said that Exxon needs come up with scientific
data to back up the claims or pull the ads. Even though gasoline superiority claims are
rampant in the gasoline industry, justification must be made within reason to explain
why consumers must pay as much as twenty cents per gallon more for premium
gasoline. Even as the gasoline superiority battles continue, one thing that provides a
switching cost and a repeat customer is the issuance of credit.
Little pieces of plastic with the customer’s name etched in gold is perhaps the
biggest selling point of gasoline in America. By attaching one’s name to an Exxon credit
card with the company’s red, white, and blue logo, the customer gains a sense of purpose
and belonging; almost like they want that company to succeed. People love credit cards
and gasoline retailers love to sell gas. Not only do they sell their gas, but they get to
charge a fee to give consumers the honor of using their plastic to buy that gas. Imagine
that, a business where people buy your product and then are willing to pay an
additional charge to use that little piece of plastic that lets them buy more of your
product. Think of credit cards as an insurance policy that guarantees the return of customers! In the
gasoline retailing industry this is a form of switching cost. If you can persuade someone
to obtain a credit card, you have them “locked in” to use
your gasoline and the customer will actually lose something if they switch brands, either in the form of time, convenience, money, or pride.
The switching cost for the consumer could be convenience and the need for
immediate cash. An example is if you are driving down the road and need gas but have
little money in your pocket. Two gas stations appear and one is an Exxon station. If you
go to the other gas station, you will have to go inside to pay with cash and may not
have enough cash for later use. If you go to the Exxon station, you can wheel in, fill up
the tank, pay at the pump with your Exxon credit card and be on your way in less time
and still have cash in your pocket. Convenience is major persuasion tactic for creating the
need of credit cards plus an added benefit for Exxon is that they know the credit card
holder will buy gas from them again in the future and not “that other place.” Trying to
get consumers to come into the store is the first priority of course, so the remainder of
this article will focus on the strategies that Exxon uses to attract people to their stores.
The design concepts for convenience stores of the 1990s are driven by the need to
create stores that are not just better looking, but will serve as high-impact, stand-alone
marketing tools. In 1997, Exxon will remodel and construct new stores with softer colors,
differing from the old style of red, black and gray. The new canopy facia colors will
change from gray to red, which will now extend completely around the canopy. The
trim of stores will change from black to tan as a way to feature more earth-tone colors.
Carpeting will be put on the floors as a way to absorb sound and make stores more
acoustic-friendly. This also is a cost-effective way to add to the store; carpeting is two
dollars per square foot while tile costs seven dollars per square foot. Another reason to
use carpeting is to reduce liability because on acrylic floors, customers are more likely to
slip and fall. Also, with carpeting, dust settles into the carpet fibers to be vacuumed up
rather than being stirred up, just to settle on the displays.
New stores not only look good, they produce additional sales and profits for their
owners from the sale of soft drinks, snacks, cigarettes and other sundries because people
enjoy checking out a new store. Convenience stores must also be functional for the
customer and provide an enjoyable experience to insure their return. Gas stations are
becoming not just a place to purchase gas and a drink or snack, but an actual destination.
For the weary traveler, they offer a haven of rest. For the shopper on the way home,
they provide convenience and speed of service. For the late-night customer, they grant
assurances of light and security. For female customers, they create appealing images of
attractiveness and cleanliness.34
Simple things we as customers overlook, like the need for restrooms, are
becoming an important focal point for Exxon gas stations along major highways and
interstates. When comparing whether to stop at a roadside rest area or a nice clean
Exxon station, factors of safety, cleanliness and convenience play a major part.35 Exxon
is realizing this and is attempting to capitalize on this niche by insuring that each and
every Exxon station maintains clean and supplied restrooms, and not just because
Exxon is such a nice and giving corporation. They realize sales potential by designing their
stores intricately to make visitors pass through the “impulse zone” to get to the
restrooms, which puts them mainly in the back corner of the store. “The store is designed
to channel customers through a series of self-service fast foods, candy and promotional
items.” The idea is to “expose all customers to a wide array of high-margin, high-impulse
merchandise.”36
New to the ideas of convenience stores the last few years is the appearance of fast
food restaurant tie-ins. What better way to improve the image of Exxon than to tie in
with the virtually spotless image of McDonalds. No matter your personal opinion of
McDonalds, in the global community, the image and appeal of McDonalds is
impeccable. McDonalds would have to serve rat burgers for six months before major
problems would arise. Joking aside, the quality of McDonalds anywhere in the world is
the same. If you order a Big Mac in Tuba City, Arizona, that Big Mac will theoretically be the same as the Big
Mac you order in Oslo, Norway.
If Exxon can get used to consumers relating McDonalds quality with Exxon
service, possibilities look promising. Kids love McDonalds and if the kids want
McDonalds for lunch, sooner or later you will need gas anyway so what better way to
save time? Combining the last two thoughts and applying them to the
Message-Attitude-Behavior Model of persuasion, we can see that if Exxon can get
enough people conditioned to believing that Exxon has the cleanest bathrooms and the
best gasoline on the highways and McDonalds provides the hottest, freshest French fries,
people will come to the McDonalds/Exxon service station over the stand alone
representatives, the highway rest area, the rival gas stations, or rival restaurants. Also,
from an industry standpoint, “another company shares the real estate, construction and
operating costs”37 to further increase the attractiveness of tie-ins.
Corporate tie-ins seem to be a win-win situation for both corporations involved.
The only feasible thing that could go wrong would be a catastrophic disaster, such as
another Valdez or an outbreak of a deadly virus in McDonalds stores. This would
definitely damage the reputation of that particular corporation, but the question that
remains to be answered is how would such a disaster affect the corporation that they are tied to? If
there was another Exxon disaster, would you no longer go to McDonalds? If McDonalds
had an outbreak of a deadly virus, would you refuse to buy gas from Exxon?
This is definitely something to be considered, but for now, positive communication is full speed ahead
for Exxon. In the event of something catastrophic, responsible corporations should have
crisis management strategies in place. Exxon should, if they have learned anything from
the past. The past is definitely something to learn from when considering Exxon’s point
of view. They have a long, successful history behind them and how they learn from that
history and adapt that knowledge to new situations will dictate the future success of the
Exxon Corporation. Hopefully, they will be able to persuade consumer decisions in an
effective and truthful manner to avoid reliving embarrassing situations. Still, the secret to
future business success is how they can shape their image in the minds of consumers to
appeal to the broadest range of people. Do they want to come across as the
old-fashioned, home-style, “Mom-and-Pop” service station that is reminiscent of the
1950s? Or do they want to be a leader in innovation and product development without
coming across as a money-hungry, global power that is harmful to the environment?
The methods of persuasion that Exxon will use in the future will most likely
dictate their future success or failure as they market their products and shape the way we,
as consumers, think about them. Whatever method they choose to persue, saving the
tiger will prove to be the top priority.
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The grade on this paper was 200 out of a possible 200 points.
The work above is owned and copyrighted ©1997 Eric Ogle
If you use any of it, reference it!
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