Esso

See also: Exxon, Mobil, and ExxonMobil

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Esso /so/ is a trade name for ExxonMobil and its related companies. The name is a phonetic version of the
initials of the pre-1911 Standard Oil (SO = Esso),[1] and
as such became the focus of much litigation and regulatory restriction in the United States. In 1972 it was largely
replaced in the U.S. by the Exxon brand after it bought
Humble Oil, while Esso remained widely used elsewhere.
In most of the world, the Esso brand and the Mobil brand
are the primary brand names of ExxonMobil, with the
Exxon brand name still in use only in the United States
alongside Mobil. 20 February 2000

A combination gasoline/diesel pump at an Exxon in Zelienople,

Pennsylvania (2008); note that diesel on this pump is branded
Esso.
An Esso station in Stabekk, Norway (2006)

rights, but did not object to the New Jersey companys

use of the trademark (the two companies did not merge
until November 1999). However, in the other states, the
other Standard Oil companies objected and, via a 1937
U.S. federal court injunction, forced Jersey Standard to
use other brand names.[2] In most states the company used
the trademark Enco (Energy Company), and in a few
Humble.

History

In 1911, Standard Oil was broken up into 34 companies,

some of which were named Standard Oil and had the
rights to that brand in certain states (the other companies had no territorial rights). Standard Oil of New Jersey (Jersey Standard) had the rights in that state, plus
in Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina,
South Carolina, and the District of Columbia. By 1941,
it had also acquired the rights in Pennsylvania, Delaware,
Arkansas, Tennessee, and Louisiana. In those states, it
marketed its products under the brand Esso, the phonetic pronunciation of the letters S and O.

The other Standard companies likewise were Standard

or some variant on that in their home states, and another
brand name in other states. Esso ranked 31st among
United States corporations in the value of World War II
production contracts.[3]

During the years of racial segregation in the United

States, certain Esso franchises gave out The Negro MoIt also used the Esso brand in New York and the six New torist Green Book: An International Travel Guide.[4] In
England states, where the Standard Oil Company of New 1973, Standard Oil of New Jersey renamed itself as the
York (Socony - Vacuum, later Socony - Mobil) had the Exxon Corporation, and adopted that trademark through1

UNITED KINGDOM

2 United Kingdom

An Esso service station in Wetherby, West Yorkshire (2010)

The Esso sign in 1940, used in the United States until 1966

In 1888, the Anglo American Oil company opened its

head oce in London, which eventually became a part of
Esso.[8] In August 1998, Tesco announced a partnership
with Esso, opening chains of Tesco Express stores located
within forecourts, which continues today.[9] In February
2000, the two companies were opening one new store a
month, creating 4,000 jobs.[10]

out the country. It maintained the rights to Standard

and Esso in the states where it held those rights, by a
token eort, by selling Esso Diesel in those states at stations that sell diesel fuel, thus preventing the trademark
from being declared abandoned.
It retained the Esso brand in Puerto Rico and the United
States Virgin Islands until 2008, when it sold its stations
there to Total S.A.[5]
The Enco brand name was used on locations in the Midwest until 1977 when they were sold to Cheker Oil Co.
(now part of Marathon Petroleum subsidiary Speedway
LLC[6] ); Exxon continues to have a presence in southern
Ohio today (as it does throughout much of Appalachia in
In Tampere, Finland (2007)
general), though Mobil is the companys primary brand
in the Midwest.
In 2016, ExxonMobil successfully asked a U.S. federal
court to lift the 1930s trademark injunction that banned it
from using the Esso brand in certain states. By this time,
as a result of numerous mergers and rebranding, the remaining Standard Oil companies that previously objected
to the Esso name had been acquired by BP. ExxonMobil
cited trademark surveys in which there was no longer possible confusion with the Esso name as it was more than
seven decades before. BP also had no objection to lift the
ban.[2] ExxonMobil did not specify whether they would
now open new stations in the U.S. under the Esso name;
they were primarily concerned about the additional expenses of having separate marketing, letterheads, packaging, and other materials that omit Esso.[7]

2.1 Esso Blue

Esso Blue was the brand name of Essos paran oil
(kerosene) for domestic heaters in countries such as the
United Kingdom. Their television advertising song from
the 1950s, through to the 1970s, was the famous Bom,
Bom, Bom, Bom, Esso Blue!" One campaign used the
well-known song tune of "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes"
cleverly reworded as:[11] They asked me how I knew, it
was Esso Blue, I of course replied, with lower grades one
buys, smoke gets in your eyes. The non-smoking parafn. The track was released as a exi disk which was
given away free in hardware stores.[12]

3.2

2.2

Australia

Cleveland

In the 1930s Esso acquired Cleveland, an independent

company based in North East England. The name comes
from the fact that the founder and principal shareholder,
Norman Davis, spent some of World War I with his
brother Manuel in Cleveland, Ohio. Clevelands products included a benzole blend and an alcohol blend called
Discol. The Esso and Cleveland names continued in
use until 1973, when the Cleveland lling stations were
re-branded as Esso.

3.2 Australia
Main article: Esso Australia
In Australia, Esso is an aliate of ExxonMobil, it operates oil and gas production. Its retail petrol stations were
acquired by Mobil Australia in 1990.

4 Branding

Esso is ExxonMobils primary gasoline brand worldwide

except in Australia, Guam, Nigeria and New Zealand,
2.3 Northern Ireland
where the Mobil brand is used exclusively. In Colombia and Egypt, both the Esso and Mobil brands are used.
Esso traded in Northern Ireland up until the early 2000s.
(Mobil is ExxonMobils primary retail gasoline brand in
Their forecourts were re-branded as Maxol and some reCalifornia, Florida, New York, New England, the Great
mained private.
Lakes and the Midwest. Exxon is the primary brand in
the rest of the United States, with the highest concentration of retail outlets located in New Jersey, Pennsylvania,
2.4 Euro Garages
Texas and in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern states.)
45 of Euro Garages forecourts were bought from Esso
in 2013, and are operated under the Esso brand. They
plan to roll out partner brands such as Starbucks and Spar,
replacing the Esso branded shops.

5 Advertising campaigns

In the 1960s, campaigns featuring heavy spending in

dierent mass media channels became more prominent. Esso spent hundreds of millions of dollars on a
2.5 Shop and Drive
brand awareness campaign built around the simple and
alliterative[13] theme Put a Tiger in Your Tank.[14] PsyShop and Drive is an Esso branded convenience store opchologist Ernest Dichter[15] and DDB Worldwide copyerated in some stations, although many of their locations
writer Sandy Sulcer[16] learned that motorists desired
have franchised shops such as Nisa.
both power and play while driving, and chose the tiger
as an easy-to-remember symbol to communicate those
feelings. The North American and later European campaign featured extensive television and radio and mag3 Aliates
azine ads, including photos with tiger tails supposedly
emerging from car gas tanks, promotional events featur3.1 Canada
ing real tigers, billboards, and in Europe station pump
hoses wrapped in tiger stripes as well as pop music
Main article: Imperial Oil
songs.[14] Tiger imagery can still be seen on the pumps
In Canada, the Esso brand is used on stations operated of successor rm ExxonMobil.

6 References
[1] ExxonMobil: History of Esso in the UK
[2] The Return of Esso Gasoline?". CSP Daily News. 16
February 2016. Retrieved 18 September 2016.

An Esso location in Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada (2008)

[3] Peck, Merton J. & Scherer, Frederic M. The Weapons Acquisition Process: An Economic Analysis (1962) Harvard
Business School p.619

by Imperial Oil, which is 69.8% owned by ExxonMobil.

Esso also provides aviation fuel services at 80 airport locations in Canada (Aviation and Avitat).

[4] McGee, Celia (August 22, 2010). The Open Road

Wasn't Quite Open to All. The New York Times. Retrieved 2011-04-25. Although Victor Greens initial edition only encompassed metropolitan New York, the Green

Book soon expanded.... The 15,000 copies Green eventually printed each year were sold as a marketing tool
not just to black-owned businesses but to the white marketplace, implying that it made good economic sense to
take advantage of the growing auence and mobility of
African Americans. Esso stations, unusual in franchising
to African Americans, were a popular place to pick one
up.
[5] Lett, Christine (March 11, 2008). Total Petroleum to
take over Essos fuel business in V.I.. The Virgin Islands
Daily News. Retrieved 11 June 2010.
[6] http://www.marathonpetroleum.com/content/
documents/mpc/about/MarathonMarketingHistory.pdf
[7] After 78 Years, Exxon Asks Court To Use 'Esso' Name
Again. CSP Daily News. 21 December 2015. Retrieved
18 September 2016.
[8] Our early days in Europe. About us. Exxon Mobil Corporation. Retrieved 17 January 2014.
[9] Esso fuels Tescos expansion. news.bbc.co.uk. August
21, 1998. Retrieved August 11, 2015.
[10] Tesco link with Esso to create 4,000 jobs. theguardian.com. February 5, 2000. Retrieved August 11,
2015.
[11] the great blue singer Esso Blue exi disk recording, Juzp
[12] "The Great Blue Singer " at Discogs
[13] William Sare (February 6, 2005). ON LANGUAGE:
Metaphor Madness. The New York Times. Retrieved October 19, 2011. The foolish fearsomeness of this act was
vitiated in the 1960s by Esso, which took a smiling tiger
as a symbol with the alliterative slogan Put a tiger in your
tank.
[14] Western Europe: The Tiger Goes Abroad. Time. May
28, 1965. Retrieved October 19, 2011. Put a tiger in
your tank. The star of one of the most popular advertising campaigns ever hatched on Madison Avenue, Essos
frisky, whimsical tiger with the high-octane tail has become a roaring success all over Europe.
[15] Lynne ames (August 2, 1998).
The View
From/Peekskill; Tending the Flame of a Motivator. The New York Times. Retrieved October 19, 2011.
Among his most famous successes was the slogan Put a
tiger in your tank, still in use by Exxon.
[16] David Kaplan (January 23, 2004). Sulcer, 77, Former
DDB Needham Exec, Dies. adweek. Retrieved January
20, 2014. Frederick D. Sandy Sulcer... He created the
well-known Put a tiger in your tank theme line for Esso
(now ExxonMobil)

External links
Ocial website

EXTERNAL LINKS

Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

8.1

Text

Esso Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esso?oldid=756656761 Contributors: Bryan Derksen, Edward, Tregoweth, Egil, TUF-KAT,
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8.2

Images

File:Commons-logo.svg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/4a/Commons-logo.svg License: PD Contributors: ? Original artist: ?

File:Esso_Diesel.jpg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b2/Esso_Diesel.jpg License: Public domain Contributors: Transferred from en.wikipedia to Commons by SchuminWeb using CommonsHelper. Original artist: Jgera5 at English Wikipedia
File:Esso_Stabekk.JPG Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a3/Esso_Stabekk.JPG License: Public domain
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File:Esso_gas_station_finland.png Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3c/Esso_gas_station_finland.png License: CC BY 2.5 Contributors: Own work Original artist: Kieliopiton 08:27, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
File:Esso_sign.jpg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7b/Esso_sign.jpg License: CC BY-SA 3.0 Contributors:
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File:Esso_station_from_York_Road,_Wetherby_(April_2010)_001.jpg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/
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File:Esso_textlogo.svg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/22/Esso_textlogo.svg License: Public domain Contributors: http://goodlogo.com/extended.info/esso-logo-2709 Original artist: ExxonMobil
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8.3

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