The decision to rebrand Kum & Go convenience stores to Maverik was not easy, Salt Lake City-based Maverik CEO Crystal Maggelet said at CSP’s Outlook Leadership conference Aug. 21.
“It was months of going back and forth,” said Maggelet, who was joined in the session, titled Disrupt, Acquire, Integrate: The New Rules of Growth, by Jose Antonio Fernandez Garza, CEO of Monterrey, Mexico-based Fomento Economico Mexicano S.A.B. of C.V. (FEMSA) Proximity and Health Division OXXO.
“We even did market studies to make sure that Maverik would be an accepted name in the communities,” she said. “We understood that Kum & Go had a brand and loyalty just like Maverik.”
In the end, however, “From a marketing point of view, from an ease of operation and efficiency, we decided one brand was the way to go,” Maggelet said.
Juggling two brands is difficult, she said, citing Knoxville, Tennessee-based Pilot merging with Flying J in 2010 as an example.
“They kept the Flying J brand, and it’s just difficult to really keep the identity of those brands, even if you keep the name,” she said. “With Pilot and Flying J, I see the Flying J’s been kind of turned into Pilot’s, even though they’re called Flying J. Operationally, it’s just very, very difficult to keep two brands going. I think you can’t be as efficient, and we want to operate as efficiently as we can at Maverik and that just wasn’t going to happen operating two brands. At least we didn’t know how to do it.”
OXXO
FEMSA, meanwhile, which owns the OXXO c-store chain, is rebranding the 249 DK stores it acquired from Delek US Holdings Inc. in 2024 to OXXO.
For FEMSA, rebranding the DK c-store brand was “obvious because the OXXO brand had higher brand recognition than some incumbent chains that have been operating in Texas for decades,” Garza said. “We are very consumer centered. Whatever the consumer wants we provide.”
Garza said they saw a lot of excitement, especially throughout West Texas, when they acquired the DK stores. He said there’s a lot of recognition and nostalgia from people “who would go to the border to visit relatives and recognize OXXO.”
He added, however, that that transformation “comes with a sense of responsibility because if you just turn the OXXO brand outside and don’t deliver the OXXO experience or even better, the consumer really would know this—‘this is not the OXXO of my hometown in Mexico’ or whatever.”
Rebranding comes with a “real responsibility of transforming the experience into what they expect,” he said.
“I don’t know if we’re going to get all the way there, but we love being able to provide that feeling that you’re coming back home,” Garza said. “It’s a neighborhood store, and it brings you fond memories, so that’s awesome.”
Conversely, he said, there are times when a company should not rebrand, such as when FEMSA acquired a 100-year-old chain in Europe, Switzerland-based Valora, whose brands include k, kiosk and avec.
“We’re not going to change to OXXO because Germany and Switzerland people do not recognize the OXXO brand, and we should just [do] whatever the consumer wants,” he said. “So, you will always be loyal to whatever the consumer wants and what brand can really help us to bring a fantastic value experience.
“In the places where we are right now, OXXO makes sense,” he said. “As we expand, probably other brands will make sense.”
Members help make our journalism possible. Become a CSP member today and unlock exclusive benefits, including unlimited access to all of our content. Sign up here.