Tristan Poulter

The Task
The UK petrol retail market is intensely competitive. Purchasers are generally loyal to stations near by and few see any real brand differentiation.

Our brief was to drive loyalty – and increase customer value – by building an emotional connection with drivers and so to acquire new members for Texaco’s loyalty scheme and to reduce post-promotion churn.

We also sought to build on Texaco’s heritage as the petrol brand most concerned with road safety and to excite and engage primary school aged children whilst simultaneously educating them to the dangers of traffic and in how to be safe on the roads.

The Solution
The solution used a mix of animation, online, PR and live events.

Five animations featuring Hector, an imaginative 9-year-old boy, brought to life important road safety messages. DVDs of these animations were freely distributed in Texaco stations.

Hector also featured in his own interactive website with games, the films themselves and tools to allow children to create their own storyboards.

Local and national press coverage followed when a Hector roadshow toured UK schools teaching children road safety skills. Agency creatives also went along and explained to the children how the characters were created and the films and online material produced.

The Result
Although not primarily about driving incremental income, the campaign increased monthly income by an average of 12%. It also helped deliver 70,000 new members to the loyalty scheme. Registrations (an inverse measure of churn) increased by 20%.

The digital work has also been a success. 20,000 unique visitors visited the site at www.hectorshome.com. Each visitor clicked through an average of 8.1 pages per visit. Over 5,000 visitors used the online storyboard maker and 20% of these created an entry for the competition we ran to win a trip to Aardman studios.