Space and the City
Ryan Clark
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Posts by Ryan Clark
MASCOTS OF THE OIL PATCH: BOURGEOIS THE HOT SAUCE MAN
May 13th
I STOP HOT FIRES!
Ok, I’ll admit it: I am easily won over by the use of anthropomorphism in branding, which usually takes the form of a corporate mascot. Granted, some creep me out, such as the too-cool hamsters riding around in those current Kia Soul spots, but others I just can’t help but bring to your attention.
Who:
Bourgeois The Hot Sauce Man
Company:
Bourgeois and Associates
Offering:
Fire Suppression Systems
Branding Tie-In:
Founder Roger Bourgeois is actually the Hot Sauce Man himself, distributing bottles of their own Louisiana red goodness at events, meetings and tradeshows. According to the history of the Hot Sauce Man found on their website, they also donate thousands of bottles every year to charities. Select clients end up with a 3 bottle sauce caddy including a ‘lifetime refill certificate.’ They claim bottles have been spotted as far away as Russia.
Takeaway:
Bourgeois might seem quaint, a little corny and somewhat artistically dated, but the way the way that the company (which is a small and no doubt lean and mean organization) incorporates him into their retention and loyalty efforts is smart marketing. I’m willing to bet it’s fairly low cost, and even if you can’t remember their name, you’ll certainly remember ‘those hot sauce people who put out fires.’ Think that does them no good? Do a Google search for “fire suppression hot sauce” and check out the top result.
Spotted in the March/April issue of Go Gulf Magazine.
1.5 Million Americans Learn What the MMS Does.
May 11th
Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar stopped by The Daily Show with John Stewart the other night. Have a watch.
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | M – Th 11p / 10c | |||
| Ken Salazar | ||||
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Now, it is my greatest desire in the world to completely avoid politics on this site. And anyone who reads the trade press or stops by the keynote speakers at our collective luncheons and conferences knows that Secretary Salazar does not work for an administration particularly favored by the non T. Boone Pickens of our industry. However, I found the following things interesting about this particular, if brief, intersection between between the industry and a the Katy Freeway of pop culture and I wanted to take a minute out to talk about messaging strategies:
- Salazar, for all his colorful getup, was a surprisingly un-compelling guest.
- This exchange is probably the greatest amount of information that the average viewer has ever had regarding Oil and Gas leases, how they work, and what the role of the MMS/BLM is in all that.
It’s the second point that got me musing, as I think it could represent one possible shift in populist messaging against the industry. If you’ll recall last year (and who doesn’t, wistfully), when folks were pumping record amounts into their tanks while, at the same time, many of us in the industry were pumping out record profits, there was a brief, if traction-less, call for windfall profits. But think about if the wider population was aware of the fact that some of that profit was coming from land that was being leased from them. What would happen if, while standing there pumping an angry Benjamin into the tank, Joe Public was thinking “I can’t believe I’m paying five bucks a gallon for something that belongs to me. I’m gonna call my congressman and give them a piece of my mind about this.” That’s a story that’s worth re-telling. And the internet is full of examples of stories worth re-telling, misguided, uninformed, well intentioned or indifferent, that catch fire faster than a gusher next to a gun range. It also has the virtue of being able to fit on a t-shirt or a bumper-sticker which, unfortunately, is still important in public discourse.
Now, on the one hand, IPAA and kin could use the argument “if you lowered the royalty rate, prices could come down.” But I don’t think that’s the message that would ultimately win out. The perspective in this piece is very much one of “the industry was getting sweetheart deals that didn’t pass the smell test,” and that pretty much perfectly lines us with the public perception of the industry, unfortunately (again and eternally). This is a message that interest groups should both be on the lookout for and have a straightforward, frank and honest response to.
Sloganeering won’t work here. Remember, the guy that chanted “Drill Baby, Drill” lost out to the guy who drove the hybrid Ford. Fuel for thought.
TGIF: TOP FIVE MOVIES ABOUT OIL
May 1st
HAPPY FRIDAY. Ah the cinema. A place where dreams come true, and those pants you have with the pockets big enough to sneak in red vine licorice come in decidedly handy. (I am sorry. I am totally ok paying four bucks for a gallon of gas, but nothing gets my grits like having to pay that much for a Butterfinger.) In honor of the impending start of the summer blockbuster season, I’d like to present the official WideAzimuth.com list of the best movies ever made about oil. Ever. Atleast that I’ve seen. It’s chill, I have a film degree so you can be sure I speak with some authority on the matter.
5. The Abyss
It’s easy to forget with all the min-subs, insane SEALs, liquid oxygen, animated water probes and deepwater aliens, but the whole reason all those non-military types were down at the bottom of the ocean in the first place was oil. The vessel most of the film’s action takes place on is an experimental sea-floor drilling rig called the Benthic Explorer. Now, I am going to go ahead and say that, as far as the science and economics goes, this is hella unrealistic (to say nothing of the fact that seem able to cap and abandon a well they are drilling in hours) and given that even at the bottom of the sea they aren’t immune to hurricane damage, don’t expect to see any of these anytime soon. Shucks.
4. Syrianna
Not the most flattering story ever told about the industry (I think we’re all kinda used to that by now), but a gripping quadranarrative thriller of the connection between oil and power nevertheless. Also, it’s nice to see folks from the legal and financial analyst side of the industry get their time on the screen. Real talk: Considering how apparently easy it was for Somali pirates to snag one of Saudi Aramco’s tankers recently, how is it that the final scene in the move hasn’t happened (and please may it never)?
3. There Will Be Blood
This is one of those movies that I love putting on after a night on the town and falling asleep watching on the couch only to be woken up hours later in terror as Daniel Plainview is yelling I DRINK YOUR MILKSHAKE at me. Radiohead guitarist Johnny Greenwood composed the soundtrack, which should probably win an award for “Most un-California Sounding Music Ever Made for a Move That Takes Place in California Except Possibly a Dark Alley in Bakersfield.”
2. Giant
Elizabeth Taylor. Rock Hudson. James Dean. Dennis Hopper. Texas. Cattle. Oil. Not Being Racist Anymore. If you haven’t seen it by now, go ahead and spend a few hours getting re-acquainted with all the best stereotypes about Texans before the invention of JR Ewing. Seriously, James Dean is so chill in this movie that I can remember them using a still from it to advertise Levis jeans decades later. Actually, I am going to go get some Levis right now. Bonus Pointer: Next time you are at an industry mixer, try putting “Jet-Tex” as your employer on your name tag. You can wheat/chaff the strangers you meet based on if they get the reference.
1. Mad Max: The Road Warrior
This is perhaps the most pro-Oil and Gas movie ever made. Think about it. A group of people who seem to have kept plenty of color-safe bleach around after the apocalypse are trying to keep bad guys at bay who want to steal their dolphin-worshipy outfits and the only known source of oil left in the Australian Outback. They are the keepers of sanity and civilization and have to fight off a gang called the Humungous who desperately seek gasoline in spite of their deciding to pilot vehicles powered by jet engines. It’s like exactly the opposite of Waterworld (in oh so many ways) where the bad-guys have all the oil and the good-guy has gills and has to drink his own urine.
Got an addition to this list? Leave it in the comments!
NOCs, Young Lions and Your Social Media Strategy
Apr 30th
Example of a very old geoscientist
There’s an interesting quote from Seismic Micro-Tech CEO Arshad Matin in this month’s issue of Oil and Gas Investor:
Unlike a lot of Western oil companies, which have an aging workforce, as much as 80% to 90% of the scientists with the NOCs have less than three years’ experience. They’re in their 20s and 30s and they grew up with a PC or a laptop.
Now we hear endlessly about the graying of the oil patch, and the relative difficulty in finding new recruits to fill the ranks (last year one Houston company, who will remain nameless, is said to have started poaching from a nearby Best Buy’s Geek Squad, their in-store tech support team, to fill GeoTechnician roles). What’s interesting about this quote is that is specifically addresses age in National Oil Companies, and later goes on to mention that these young people are coming from “India, China, Malaysia and Brazil.”
So what does that mean to marketers (sorry eveyone else, this is going to be a marketing post)? Well, take a look at some of the following from NetPop:
92% of the 243 million broadband consumers in [China] (224 million) ages 13+ contribute to social media…Young professionals ages 25-29 are the most active users of social media in China. They use more online modes of communication more often than any other age group.
Now add to that the following stats from comScore about Social Networking penetration, average time on site, and average visits for December 2008. India: 60.3%/110.4 minutes/10.4 visits; Malaysia: 66.6%/181.2 minutes/14.2 visits; China 45.6%/89.5 Minutes/7.4 visits. That’s JUST for the month of December.
Oh, and let’s get Brazil in on this since Matin mentioned them: Trendspotting’s summary of a report by UniversalMcCann indicates that Brazil’s social networking users are the most active in the world – more than the US!
If you’ve been in the oil patch for the past few years (and operate internationally), you know that the power and prowess of the NOCs are on the rise. And now you know that, atleast for the geosciences, your emerging users/future managers are young, and from countries that have extremely high social media use (we can assume that the stats on China’s high usage among young professionals is a fairly global trend – anecdotally, it certainly is in the United States). So. What is your company’s social media strategy?
Schlumberger, Haliburton Plug and Abandon AAPG Exhibits
Apr 27th
It started as a rumor, but a recent stop by the AAPG website has put some fact behind the whispers: both Schlumberger and Haliburton, long-time anchor exhibitors at the American Association of Petroleum Geologists’ Annual Convention, have pulled out of the conference. Neither is listed as an exhibitor, and the floor-plan now shows IHS, Fairfield, TGS and PGS occupying the coveted ‘four corners’ spaces (where the main aisle and the aisle from the convention hall entrance meet). It’s hard to say what effect, if any, this will have on the on-again, off-again urging of exhibiting service companies that the AAPG and SEG combine their shows. It’s certainly more grape than fodder in the cannon.
That being said, the exhibit hall is mostly sold (though there are some spaces left on the outskirts of the show floor) and so, even without Big Red and Big Blue (and Landmark and WesternGeco), there is still no rival hall when it comes to the latest technologies and information about petroleum geology.
I don’t want it to sound like I’m playing armchair marketer to Schlumberger and Haliburton: their exhibitions at the AAPG have historically been massive, expensive affairs likely costing more than most service company’s annual exhibiting budget (and the AAPG is, by no means, their largest show of the year). Deciding what to cut from a marketing budget is always an exercise in balance; a tradeshow here, an advertisement there.
That being said, cutting out of a conference entirely (rather than reducing your foot-print or shortening the list of attending staff) is not a move I can really get behind (for a national conference). Sure, there isn’t much being spent in these first couple quarters of 2009, but that’s all the more reason to keep in front of your customers, and keep them wistful for your latest and greatest for when their management does finally re-open the spigot. Our industry has always been one based on personal connections (Denver especially, where it’s joked that more deals get done over a drink at Marlowe’s than in any conference room), and being present at tradeshows are a key part in that networking. So if you’re on the fence about where to cut and why, my advice would be go easy on the tradeshows. Not only can they they be done effectively for relatively cheap, they’re one of the few things you can get reliable ROI data from. And in this environment, that’s crucial.
