Jeff C. Pomponio | ProWash Brand Extension

BRAND STRATEGY • POSITIONING • DIFFERENTIATION • GROWTH

Situation:

During my employment with the Retail Marketing Division of ConocoPhillips, the company was one of the largest owners and operators of attended car washes in the United States. At the time, the car wash market was over $20 billion in revenue. When ConocoPhillips acquired assets from BP/Amoco, it inherited over 100 unattended car washes making it the predominant car wash format in its portfolio and a focus category for ConocoPhillips.

Challenge:

These car washes were unbranded and in poor condition. Many had what we in the industry called “weed wackers” – i.e. brushes with the filament used in weed trimmers which would smack against a car's surface at high velocity. Weed wackers could cause damage to your car’s antenna and paint finish.
Not surprisingly, the unbranded car washes were consistently underperforming financially.

Actions:

As Senior Brand Specialist, I began by partnering with the Operations team to upgrade the unattended car wash units with state-of-the-art touch-free systems making them much safer for consumers’ cars. Touch-free car washes had gained popularity in the industry due to major advancements in the detergents used. This resulted in a much better-quality wash than in previous years. We collaborated with a premier quality solutions provider to ensure a quality wash for our customers.

Based on consumer testing, we used a brand extension strategy by naming the unattended car wash brand "ProWash Clean&Go." While leveraging the equity of our existing "ProWash" brand, we were able to distinguish it from the attended car wash offering.

Using extensive segmentation research, we targeted the “On the Go” audience segment. This group highly valued the convenience of being able to get a car wash, gasoline and convenience store merchandise all in one stop. We positioned these car washes based on convenience and value, the two most compelling benefits that these types of car washes offer.

In addition to testing the brand names, I collaborated with our Consumer Insights team to conduct a conjoint analysis to determine pricing and the optimal service offering. This included the number of car wash packages to offer as well as what services would be delivered in each package. Our research revealed that 3 was the ideal number of packages as it provided customers with good, better and best options. The packages were priced at $5/$6/$7 in most markets based on the conjoint analysis and our competitive research. The research also concluded that the Tri-Color Polish was the service consumers valued the most, so it was strategically placed in the best offering to incentivize upselling.

I partnered with our advertising agency and field marketing team to develop and execute a comprehensive and consistent grand opening program at over 100 locations across the country. This required close coordination of point-of-sale materials, direct mail, website advertising and a variety of local store marketing programs. One program which was extremely successful was our island greeter program. We hired temporary employees to greet customers at the gasoline island during peak hours, highlight the benefits of the brand, and distribute informational flyers with coupons to promote trial. The objective of the island greeter program was to drive revenue by converting gasoline patrons already on-site into car wash customers.

Results:

Following the launch of ProWash Clean&Go, we achieved our sales goal of approximately $10K per site or $1 million per month in revenue within 6 months,

Margins were between 70% and 80% because there was no labor required to operate the car washes, making this a very profitable business for ConocoPhillips.