ADOI spoke to Mr Paul Loosley, Creative Consultant and Film Director at Axis Films on how Petronas new tagline came about….he starts…

"The actual project to create a new brand positioning for Petronas began with the actioning of some detailed background research which was conducted by an independent British business consultant between October and November 2010. Their full findings were submitted January 2011."

What was your role?

I had previously created a broad corporate advertising campaign for Petronas a year or so previously was engaged as an independent strategic consultant to work with Petronas and their consultants. The task was to develop new brand architecture; strategic direction, positioning statements and full rationales for the brand based on those findings.

So I prepared a substantial document which analysed the strategic position of the corporation, its direction and mission. This in turn led to me creating several new possible positioning statements and rationales, as summations of the new positioning. All of which were presented to the Petronas Executive Committee.

How was the final selection process?

Subsequently two of the positioning statements were chosen to be progressed for presentation to Petronas' President and the Management Committee. One of these was 'Reimagining Energy'. At this stage I floated the argument that the phrase may go beyond just a positioning statement but actually become the corporate theme.

The consultants made the presentation and the President and the management agreed 'Reimagining Energy' to be the most appropriate positioning of the two to be developed further.

It was at this stage that there was a consensus that 'Reimagining Energy' could very well be a workable corporate theme rather than a simple positioning statement. 

We noticed the new tagline was being used about three months ago….

I was tasked with preparing a very comprehensive briefing document for the ad agency to prepare some pilot creative executions. These were to include film, print and internal communication concepts. This process was closely supervised by a working group of Petronas, the Management Consultants and myself.  In early April all these materials were presented by the Consultants to Petronas' Internal stakeholders and they were well received. Thus the line, 'Reimagining Energy', received approval as a corporate theme line.

In June Petronas' President used the theme 'Reimagining Energy' as the keynote for his address in Venezuela to mark a joint venture project between the two national oil companies.  Around September 'Reimaging Energy' began to be used in Petronas publicity.

Are you happy with the results?

It is too early to gauge the response to the line but the line does incorporate the spirit of the corporation across all of its business areas. More so, it neatly sums up Petronas commitment and desire to move forward and to take a newer and bolder stance in the Oil and gas industry.

Editor's Note: We emailed Dato Mohammad Medan Abdullah, Senior GM - Corp Services Division at PETRONAS Nasional Bhd for more info on this story but are still awaiting his response. Stay tuned