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International Marketing Study Program 2003
BP visit
13 January 2003
After a fabulous weekend exploring the sights, shopping and nightlife of London, Monday saw the group take a quick tube ride from out hotel off High Street Kensington to BP's new headquarters office near Piccadilly Circus in St James Square. Greeted by Ms. Lauren Cooke, from BP's advertising and communication, who was responsible for organizing the visit, we were led through the striking offices to a large presentation and press conference room. The vibrant space with its cutting edge design and extensive technology, made us all wish we had the same facilities in our lecture halls.
The first speaker for the day was Mr. Michel van Esbeeck, Head of Group Brand, who immediately impressed upon us BP's commitment to safety and security. He then took us through a thorough understanding of the organization and its individual brands. As the second largest oil company and seventh largest company in the world, BP is committed to being "numbered among the world's great companies". Growth for the group has primarily occurred through an extensive acquisition strategy of both specific local European brands, and American brands and global players like Castrol and Amoco. In addition, joint ventures have created further avenues for growth.
Following the group overview and branding discussion, Mr. Richard Smuts, Manager Retail Advertising for Europe, took us through BP's marketing communications strategy. His presentation displayed clear links between the theoretical learning we have undertaken at Monash, with real world application. According to Mr. Smuts, their 'text book' approach was specifically developed as a means to bridge any gaps between their very diverse staff across the many countries in which BP operates. We were then shown a video of a range of television commercials which have been developed for different global markets, and one which is currently in development. They were a truly unique glimpse at how a global organization is customizing its advertising campaigns to creatively and successfully appeal to a variety of different cultures around the world.
Once we had an overview of the communications strategy, Mr. Iron Jordan, Group Marketing, presented a thorough overview of some of BP's segmentation strategy. There are few who are not targeted by BP, as their products have universal appeal. At the same time, the group is committed to developing a thorough understanding of its consumers with a long term view towards relationship building. Due in part to the extensive growth of the group and the recent rebranding, BP believes itself to be a young organization, and so continues to develop and fine tune its segmentation and consumer learning tools.
The presentations concluded with Mr. David Henderson, Diversity and Inclusion, who is a Monash graduate. Mr. Henderson both entertained and took us a little beyond our comfort zones through exercises utilized in BP to help illustrate the differences that can exist between people and encourage inclusive behaviour. In the global market place in which BP operates, and with more than 110,000 staff across the world, the organization is very keen to ensure that its diverse workforce feels a part of the organization and that their unique talents are utilized. This was a refreshing approach, and had many of us keen to join the BP ranks.
The day concluded with a lovely lunch during which we had the opportunity to delve deeper into the topics which were covered during the day, and inquire about any other marketing areas in which we were interested. Both the presenters and additional marketing staff who joined us were very accommodating, and thoroughly covered any questions that they were asked. BP is a company that clearly goes "Beyond Petroleum" in its operations, and our lunch was a wonderfully informal way to go beyond what we had already learned during the information packed day, to satisfy our further interest.
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