Fill 'er up (with coffee)?

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BY MIKE HOBAN | Saturday, November 05, 2005 | (No comments posted.)

The radio ad had a folksy, comforting tone to it, as the "Store Manager" spoke in warm, friendly terms about the fresh ground coffee and the tempting baked goods in his establishment.

He waxed eloquent about the customer service and the sense of family we could all experience if we would just stop in and make his place of business part of our morning ritual. I was sure the name of the place had to be something akin to The Kumbaya Cafe.

He finally identified his store as BP. Could that stand for "Breakfast Pastries?" Well, no. BP, as in British Petroleum. As in the oil company.

It was a nicely done commercial, and I wanted to go there and meet this guy and drink his coffee, enjoy his buttery croissants and share pictures of my kids with him and his employees. But in his 60-second soliloquy, with all the references to refreshing repasts, never once did he mention that his store was indeed a gas station and that, when he and his staff are not grinding the perfect Arabica roast blend to fill your cup, they will sell you no-lead outside at the pump to fill your tank.

It’s image marketing, and I heard a similar ad on the radio in Detroit last week for a competing petroleum company, Speedway. It was all about the product in the coffee pot, not the product in the gas pump.

It is rather puzzling that when gas was cheap, the gas companies spent millions to differentiate their products from each other and give you reasons why we should buy their fuel. Standard Oil (which became Amoco which became BP) bragged of its "final filter," which removed all the impurities as you filled up. Its tag line during the '60s was "You expect more from Standard -- and you get it!"

Esso (which became Exxon-Mobil) challenged us to put a tiger in our tanks by choosing its gas. Shell pitched its secret ingredient called "Platformate," which was supposed to give us better mileage. And we were told we could trust the man who wore the big red Texaco star.

Fast forward to 2005. We are in the era of the $50 fill-up, and gas is considered a liquid asset. When is the last commercial you saw or heard that congratulated us on the wisdom of buying XYZ gas because it contains miracle molecules or anything to that effect? When did we last hear a pitch for the spectacular service at the pump rather than at the coffee bar?

To me, the silence about what’s in the pump should make us all conclude that "gas is gas," so the focus becomes the in-house convenience stores and the quick-pay-at-the-pump devices. On a local level, it also suggests that we price-shop, since apparently gas is gas.

Writing this column led me to two conclusions. First, if the gas companies can sell coffee, perhaps Starbucks ought to start selling gas. Second, it’s very frightening that I remember all those dumb gasoline slogans and pitches, some of which go back 45 years. Who says advertising isn’t powerful?

Mike Hoban, of Munster, is a senior consultant for an international leadership development and training firm. Hoban's column solely represents the writer's opinions and not necessarily those of The Times. Send mail to him c/o this newspaper, or contact him at mjhoban@sbcglobal.net.

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