Caltex celebrates 75th anniversary with new campaign from Y&R

The campaign is a major shift for the international fuel brand, replacing its tagline of ten years ‘What drives you’, with ‘Caltex. Enjoy the journey’.

Brian Fisher, Caltex global brand manager said that, like all major brands, Caltex needed to keep with the times. “’What drives you’ was 10 years old, and our brand is 75 years young and vibrant.”

Promoting Caltex service stations, the campaign launches this week in Malaysia, Thailand, New Zealand and Singapore and will be rolled out across the Philippines, Hong Kong, Cambodia, South Africa and Pakistan. It will run across television, print, digital, radio, outdoor and in-store.

Fisher said the inspiration for the campaign comes very much from the customers that Caltex serves. “Caltex is a people-centric brand. We like to focus on the fundamental qualities of being customer-focused, agile, professional, loyal and socially responsible. So in our advertising, we focused more on the emotional needs of people, and less on the machinery and technical jargon.”

Y&R was tasked with creating a 360-degree communications campaign which would reinvigorate the Caltex brand with a unique point of view, differentiate the brand in the marketplace, and enable it to better connect with its customers.

‘Caltex. Enjoy the Journey’ positions Caltex as the brand which understands all types of motorists, and works hard to make their journeys a little more enjoyable by providing good fuel, good service and good facilities, the agency says.

Creative execution includes a special 75th anniversary logo, designed by a Caltex employee, which will be used in some marketing collaterals during 2011.

A new logo – a 3D button – has also been designed by Y&R. This is a graphic representation of the same logo displayed on the canopies at Caltex fuel stations.

There is a focus on the use of more emotive imagery throughout the campaign. This includes the use of bubbles as a recurring feature, as a universal symbol of escapism and happiness as well as a metaphor for the cleaning power of Caltex fuel.

Camellia Tan, senior regional account director at Y&R Singapore said that the agency wanted to take the Caltex brand from the space it’s been in with ‘What Drives You’ and ‘Little Cleaners’ which were "effective, but functional", and bring it into a more personal, "uplifting" brand territory.

“To transition the brand from ‘What drives you’ to ‘Enjoy the journey’, we produced the ‘Caltex bubbles’ campaign – this is just the first taste of the Caltex brand renaissance work - we’re taking a phased approach, with a lot more to come,” Tan said.

Credits

ECD James Procter
Regional creative director, Caltex Bruce Watt
Art director Somjai Satjatham
Copywriter Raymond Quah, Sridhar Gopalratnam, Matt Grim
Creative contributors Justin White, Dian Widjaja, Jules Kim
Planner Hari Ramanathan
Account director Camellia Tan
Director Ben Saunders
Production house The Otto Empire
Post production Fin Design+Effects
Media agency MEC