bp: TEAM USA

Credits & Description:

Advertiser: BP
Agency: OGILVY NEW YORK
Category: Consumer Products
Group Creative Director: Ken Shuldman (Ogilvy & Mather)
Agency Producer: Maria Garelli (Ogilvy & Mather)
Group Creative Director: Kj Bowen (Ogilvy & Mather)
Account Director: Moshe Abehsera (Ogilvy & Mather)
Planner: Liz Wade (Ogilvy & Mather)
Client Manager: Louise Bell (Landor Associates/London)
Art Director: Nic Wehymeyer (Ogilvy & Mather)
Executive Creative Director: Peter Knapp (Landor Associates/London)
Graphic Designer: Phil Wareham (Landor Associates/London)
Design Director: Carl Halksworth (Landor Associates/London)
Associate Creative Director: Don Miller (Ogilvy & Mather)
Senior Client Manager: Emma Hodson (Landor Associates/London)
Management Supervisor: Lisa Leonardo (Ogilvy & Mather)
Client Director: Sophie Smith-Bosanquet (Landor Associates/London)
Chief Creative Officer: Steven Simpson (Ogilvy & Mather)
Executive Creative Director: David Fowler (Ogilvy & Mather)
Copywriter: Joshua Kessler (Ogilvy & Mather)
Executive Agency Producer: Lee Weiss (Ogilvy & Mather)

Brief Explanation
The U.S. is BP’s most important market, but following the events in the Gulf of Mexico, that brand could not have been in a worse position in the U.S. Favorability and trust in BP had collapsed, but are crucial to long-term and short-term business success. BP needed to rebuild its brand in the US, but any pure brand communications would likely be seen as self-serving damage control. The primary objective for the Olympics work was to rebuild BP’s favorability and improve corporate reputation in order to help create a better business environment in the U.S.

Outcome
•Awareness of BP’s sponsorship grew from 9% to 23%, putting BP ahead of other large sponsors, including BMW and Citibank. •The campaign drove increased social media engagement and BP’s US Facebook community grew to 300,000 fans.•Overall brand perception grew from -5.9 to +2.6, the biggest gain among all Olympic sponsors. •45% of respondents felt more favorable towards BP after seeing the advertising. •Analysis of online chatter showed that sentiment polarity had been reversed, going from 7% negative and 4% positive in April 2012 to 7% positive and 4% negative in September.

Implementation
The final design took recognizable BP brand elements and integrated them with graphic elements that reflected the Olympic spirit. The BP “Helios” logo was deconstructed as a simple active “ring.” The background was clean and white, long a BP brand equity. The photography style, black and white, conveyed two things: the grittiness of the athlete’s endeavor and the heroic nature of it. The process was one of finding the essentials, of starting with too much and stripping it down to what truly mattered: white, a dynamic ring, iconic photography. Simple, powerful, memorable…and appropriate for the brand and the moment.

Client Brief Or Objective
The brief was to develop an integrated marketing campaign to promote BP’s sponsorship of Team USA for the London Olympics. The client wanted to bring BP’s Olympics partnership to life, in order to communicate the values shared by BP, Team USA and the Olympics movement and ultimately, to demonstrate BP’s longstanding commitment to America. The campaign had to work across 3 levels of key stakeholders (Corporate, Retail, and Olympics Fans) and support the BP America communications platform. The design needed to capture the emotions of the Olympics, while fitting within the overall BP and Olympics style guidelines.