Client: ALON Brands
A NEW BEGINNING FOR A HISTORIC BRAND
ALON Brands, markets fuel to more than 800 locations in the Southwest and is the largest U.S. licensee of 7-Eleven stores with more than 300 locations. Until 2012, the company was better known by the name of its 50-year-old fuel brand, FINA, but market research and growth plans fueled the decision to launch an aggressive rebranding campaign that would transition the brand from FINA to ALON in less than a year.
LISTEN
As ALON’s agency of record, Three Box was involved in planning from the very beginning and knew how important communication would be to the success of the campaign. First and foremost, we needed to get ALON’s distributors on board with the change in order to maintain essential business relationships, before rolling out the new brand to the public.
BUILD
Three Box established a strategy for the rollout that was built on three key elements: educating the community about the new brand and what it means for them, celebrating the history of the FINA brand and building excitement for the new beginning of the ALON brand, and engaging the entire brand network to create a sense of community and loyalty towards the new brand. After unveiling the new brand to employees and distributors during a special gala, we planned a series of brand launch events in key ALON markets.
IMPACT
Between April and August 2012, Three Box executed brand launch events in seven different communities in West Texas and New Mexico. Highlights include:
Seven mayoral declarations of ALON Day in communities served by the brand
Local media coverage in all key markets served by ALON Brands, including Midland, Lubbock and El Paso, Texas, as well as Las Cruces and Albuquerque, New Mexico
Feature stories in Convenience Store News, CSP and Convenience Store Decisions
Zero distributors lost during the transition and an increase in distributor satisfaction under the new brand