May, 2001
Volume 4, Issue 4

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A Team Boston Newsletter
Shifting Trends

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Inside this issue:

What Works on the Web            2
and What Doesn't

Shell/TexacoJoint                     2
Ventures Face Their
Final Days

Gas prices Beginning              3
to Rise

Gas Goodies                               3

Grand Re-Opening                    3

Top Hat 10                                  4

Hypermarts Will Soon             4
Feed on Each Other in the
Quest for Gasoline Profits

 Opportunity Marketing:

For the past couple of years, Trend Letter has noted growing use of opportunity marketing – any attempt by a company to find an audience, get in front of it and have its message heard over the din of all others.

They have written about floating billboards attached to barges in San Francisco Bay and giant messages wrapped around New York skyscrapers. Rockets blast off emblazoned with Pizza Hut logo and gender-specific advertisements abound in public restrooms.

The latest tactic being used by more and more companies, is the one that allows them to take their message on the road every day, everywhere: private automobiles. Today, thousands of private vehicles are wrapped in adhesive vinyl imprinted with company logos and slogans.

The movement got its start in Calif.,

 but has traveled east. Dulles, Virginia-based clothing retailer Britches Great Outdoors spends about $2500 per Volkswagen to swath the cars in its distinctive plaid advertisements. Outback Steakhouse, Black Entertainment Television and a satellite telephone start-up are among the companies paying drivers a small monthly fee ($200-$400 on average) to stick out like sore thumbs.

Apparently, plenty of people are willing to wear a company’s colors. FreeCar Media and Autowraps Co., two California ad agencies, invited their Web site visitors to register their interest in having their car covered with commercials. Hundreds of thousands responded.

Some marketing experts debate whether the tactic actually works, but the CEO of Britches says the ads appeal to the youth market he’s targeting. "It’s fun, it’s young, it’s youthful," he says.
NE Marketers Brace for a Sunoco-Wal-Mart World
Marketers in four Northeast states will soon see gasoline stations pop up on Wal-Mart parking lots, Oil Express learns. Sunoco execs have met with marketers in the region and have indicated that the first Sunoco built-and-operated fueling sites will open in a few months.

Sunoco won’t discuss details 		but acknowledges that its plans call for 40 stations before year’s end. The largest concentration – about 12 outlets – will be in Pennsylvania, the company’s home state and also the site of some of the toughest hypermart competition in the country, thanks to firms such as Wawa, Sheetz, and JF’s. Other states targeted are West Virginia, Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

If targets are met, there could be about 240 Sun-supplied Wal-Mart sites by the end of 2003. If those stations do an average 200,000 gals/mo., it will remove much of the unbranded supply from Sunoco’s refining network, analysts add.


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