Ch. 8 - Segmenting and Targeting Market

BP ''British Petroleum'' oil producers sells a very distinctive product. A product that some people may not see as something you can market or they may believe that it would take some real creatives juices to market oil. Now this may be true because I know when I was growing up watching TV oil commercials weren't appealing or had any thing that can draw me in....you know like characters like the gecko from the Gieco commercials or animals like Tony The Tiger from the Frosted Flakes commercial. One of the most successful and noticeable gas and energy providers that I was familiar with was Hess due to its down pouring of Ads and commercials. I say this because of the success of their Hess toy truck that sold billions and as a kid I even had one. Even with the success of their Hess commercial which had everyone singing as soon as it came on especially around christmas time. Now in comparison to my company Bp who many wasn't familiar with mainly because they are a foreign company didn't have toy products or catchy songs like Hess they just simply had a product that was doing well overseas for a while. BUT..........

That was the pass and this is now!!!!

Everyday Bp serves millions of customers around the world. Fact is that Bp has reach as many consumers as Wal-Mart the world largest retailer and this is because of all of their brand names which include Arco, Castrol, Amoco, Aral, and of course Bp! In Europe, Bp is the second largest fuel retailer overall, and are the largest retailer in Germany which are their biggest market. Having over 2,700 outlets in Germany today, mostly branded under Aral gives Bp a gasoline market segment share of about 22%.

Bp uses the ''BP'' and Amoco brandnames in the USA East Of The Rocky Mountains and ARCO to the west. The Idea of Bp joining and buying out companies was to gain a concentrated Target strategy as well as product mix because each company brought something different to the table in which Bp could capitalize off of. Castrol are known for their lubricants and are now leading the way in high performance automotive and special lubricants, Aral has outstanding products and customer service and is very dominate in Germany and then with Arco who is known for their outstanding product value, quality, and convenience and are also very dominant in the U.S westcoast areas.  What this does for Bp is cover all areas from target marketers, to positioning, multisegment targeting,perceptual mapping, and consumer options. Bp needed to do a lot of repositioning of its brand after there perception that stroke after their many accidents so with Buying and joining these companies gave Bp a significant competitive advantage.