In 2001, Mitch Harmatz bought the Plaza Automotive Center, a Shell gas station and automotive service/repair shop serving San Pedro on the Palos Verdes Peninsula. Thin margins on gasoline sales quickly directed most of his marketing efforts to the automotive service and repair side of the business.

A key challenge: promoting automotive service and repair in the face of Shell's overpowering graphics selling gasoline. Knowing that he wanted to be more than just a gas station handling basic automotive repair, he had a logo designed to position his business as an upscale service provider. He then incorporated its style and color scheme on uniforms, his web site, and other promotional materials.

It's easier to sell products and services to your existing customers than it is to acquire new customers. Fortunately, Mitch has a built-in group to cross sell to: gasoline customers. Unfortunately, most of them came in, purchased gas, and went on their way, unaware of Mitch's first-rate automotive service offerings.

To combat the lack of awareness, he covered every practical surface of his facility with signage informing gasoline customers about his service offerings. Despite the investment of time and money, and the professionalism of the graphics, only 1% of his gasoline customers became service customers.

Mitch's desire for steadier revenue growth motivated him to authorize Fresh! to perform a Brand Scan™. Our Brand Scan service delivers a series of prioritized recommendations designed to help entrepreneurs get more leads and sell more stuff.

A key finding of the Brand Scan was that the logo was overly complex, making it hard for his customers and prospects to get to know and trust his company. Worse, the gentle color palette and compressed type left his signage unnoticed and (therefore) unread.

His visual identity, which reflected the spirit of the area and its ocean-centric lifestyles, was a hit with customers. That is, it was a hit with customers that noticed it through the overwhelming power of Shell's identity.

The photo at right shows his signage dropping away into the background from the perspective of a prospective customer filling his or her tank at the pumps.

Rather than designing a new identity, we capitalized on the equity of his existing logo. We made it more readable and attention getting so that it works better in the context of Shell’s overpowering graphics.

We started the Brand Power-Up™ with the car. We colored it Shell's red and simplified it by removing the surf boards. Then, we added hub caps and the line under the car to add personality and a sense of movement.

The car can now stand by itself on t-shirts, caps, and other logo merchandise (for examples of effective logo merchandising, see our prior newsletter on Brand Alignment). The car can also be placed by itself on the backs of technician's uniforms, on the wall of the retail store, etc. To wrap the project, we redid the type and created a highly readable layout. We think you'll agree the updated logo is significantly more attention getting and engaging.

Tamara Mason of High Octane Creative collaborated with us on this project.

Mitch is working on creating all new signage based on the Fresh! identity, and we can't wait to see how it looks.

Can we "Power Up" your brand? Let's talk about it! Click, call (562) 595-0555 or write Luis@FreshGraphics.net, and we’ll get 2007 off to a roaring start!

Best,
Luis Maimoni
Creative Director
Fresh!

(562) 595-0555 Voice
(562) 595-0527 Fax
(562) 537-0678 Cell
Luis@FreshGraphics.net
www.FreshGraphics.net