BP gas station owners across America are divided over whether the oil giant stained by its handling of the Gulf spill should rebrand US outlets as Amoco or another name as part of its effort to repair the company's badly damaged reputation. Some who have seen their sales plunge because of protests say BP has already sought a fresh start by naming an American to replace its gaffe-prone British CEO, so why not change the name on gas station marquees as a further symbol of that culture shift. Others worry that a name change is a big deal that is risky given all the marketing dollars already spent building up the BP brand. They also believe a successful turnaround with the existing brand will have a bigger payoff. In the aftermath of the oil spill, some BP-branded gas stations reported sales declines of 10 percent to 40 percent from Florida to Illinois. BP later responded by offering distributors of BP gasoline cash in their pockets, reductions in credit card fees and help with more national advertising. The BP name and green-and-yellow sunflower logo took over after BP merged with Amoco in the late 1990s, replacing the Amoco name and its blue-and-red torch inside an oval logo. There is precedent for such a drastic move to return to the Amoco name or to go with a new name. Think AirTran after the ValuJet crash and Xe Services after the killing of civilians by Blackwater Worldwide guards in Iraq.
