NEW HOPE, Pa. -- In 2002, when the Petroleum Marketers Association of America (PMAA) launched its own petroleum brandSpiritthe goal of the program was to give marketers a choice, a less-expensive image that still offered the advantages of a national brand and consistent supply. Three years later, there are about 200 Spirit-branded gasoline stations across the country, and 2006 could be the breakout year for the spinoff company, Petroleum Marketers Oil Co. LLC (PMOCO).
We have gotten, in the last 90 days, a lot of people who are interested in branding [image-nocss] multiple locations, Vera Haskins, executive vice president and COO of the New Hope, Pa.-based company, told CSP Daily News. Before, we would get occasional calls like that, but now we're getting people that are calling with 12 sites or 50 sites or 20 sites. [It's] not just, I have a station.'
In fact, Haskins noted that of the 200 Spirit sites currently in operation or in the process of making the switch, there are only 75 licensees. That's encouraging to the brand that set out to be an alternative for gas stations that didn't meet the minimum gallonage requirements of a major oil brand.
There are a variety of reasons that people are interested in Spirit now, said Haskins. Sometimes it's because of a merger causing a brand conflict. So [the retailer] has to find an alternative. A lot of our draw is from locations that were unbranded and they feel like this is a good opportunity to have brand identity and not have an extremely expensive investment.
And that means minimum gallonage requirements are no longer an issue for many sites. We just licensed one [site] that's going to be doing somewhere between 350,000 and 400,000 gallons a month. It's no longer just the little stations.
Haskins, a former vice president of a Pennsylvania distributorship whose been with PMOCO since April 2004, said the brand is now available in all 50 states and growing through quiet promotion, mainly on the state level.
She added that the West Coast and Louisiana are Spirit's largest areas of operation. And the company takes great pride in learning from its licensees. We like to get input from our licensees, such as in California; it was brought to our attention that in some of the desert areas, our sign didn't show up as well, she said. So we developed an alternative sign in darker colors. All of that comes from listening to [the licensees] and getting their ideas and suggestions.
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