A little commercial nostalgia-Part 2

Now there are a lot of branding Icons that have served to draw customers over the years in many industries.  People used to look for familiar brands when they traveled because they knew that they could depend on the quality of the product.  I talked about food and lodging before, but if you are traveling by car you need gas.

ESSO (Exxon)

Put a tiger in your tank was a well known catch phrase when I was a kid.  As a matter of fact many Esso stations had tiger statues in front of the station.  Esso changed it's name to Exxon but still today the tiger is a big part of who they are since they have gotten into the convenience store business.  They still sell gas and the stores usually are called TigerMarket or TigerMart.

Mobil Oil

Whenever you saw Pegsus flying in the sky you knew down below him was a Mobil station.  As a matter of fact in my hometown of Williamsburg, VA, Mobil was the first gas station that began to convert to convenience stores.

Shell

Logos not only instill confidence in consumers, it can also be the thing that makes customers avoid you.  Most mechanics back in the day would not use Shell gasoline in their own vehicles because they believed that there was a lot of water added to it.  Oddly enough people that trusted their mechanics wouldn't use it either.

Texaco


My grandfather used to call this that 'Cowboy Company', and it was his second choice after Esso.  "At least them Texans know something about oil." was his explanation.

Whenever we traveled I knew the preference for gas stops.  Esso, Texaco, Mobil, Run out of gas, and have no choice but to use enough shell to get you to Esso, Texaco or Mobil