ExxonMobil: A corporate two-brander

New: Corporate name and logo

Launched: December 2, 1999, on closure of the merger

Story in brief:
In December 1999 Exxon acquired Mobil to set the newer ‘largest-ever industrial merger’ record, upstaging BP Amoco. In heritage terms, that’s Standard Oil of New Jersey buying Standard Oil of New York. In contrast to BP CEO Lee Raymond chose an alternative branding strategy: to combine the two names in a merely corporate brand, while retaining two independent retail identities (plus Esso) as if to say, “aren’t two global power brands better than one?” (Well yes, for a while anyway. But the product is an invisible commodity, and ultimately a ‘who’s kidding who’ attitude will prevail; the economics favor integration.) True - a corporate-only change like this is a lot less costly than retail redesign, and faster. The downside: ExxonMobil won’t get the benefit BP will reap from fresh new stations.

ExxonMobil took three months to organize its identity team, three to pick consultants Lippincott & Margulies who designed the mark and new system in four months. The mark is calibrated to co-exist as parent with the retail brands, using the Exxon x’s and the lowercase Mobil letterforms. As Lee Raymond puts it, “We think the look and feel of it reflect our company’s chief attributes – the combined strengths and synergies of the former Exxon and Mobil.”

Credits:
C.E.O. - Lee Raymond
Identity design - Lippincott & Margulies

First Impressions:
Executionally it’s nice work, yet strategically, it strikes me as work in process, to be resolved some day in a brand that looks more clearly to the future than to its heritage parts.