Slovenes often use the name of the Petrol brand as a generic expression for a gas station. But the largest Slovene energy company, which is steadily increasing its presence on the Balkan markets, is more than that – for people, the business community and society in general. In the last several years, they have been following the EU guidelines, designing a new sustainability strategy and diversifying their product and service portfolio. They wanted to present these efforts by means of a new corporate video
Background
Petrol’s gas stations are indispensable for many of us – and not just in terms of gas. How many times have you bought a cup of coffee at Petrol? How many times have you went to their gas station to buy a carton of milk or a package of toilet paper? And how often have you gone there to buy a pack of cigarettes when all other stores were already closed? Perhaps you went there to ship a package, pay a bill or buy a ticket for an event. In such situations, living close to a Petrol gas station is a huge convenience.
However, Petrol is not only indispensable for people,but also for the business community and the public sector. After all, it is one of the leading energy brands that encourage and accelerate sustainable development in the region. They renovate the public infrastructure through energy contracting, replace outdated lighting to reduce light pollution, build new wind farms, install solar panels and provide e-mobility services to reduce the emissions of harmful exhaust gases.
Our client wanted to present these efforts in a new corporate video, which they premiered at an internal event marking the acquisition of Crodux, a Croatian oil company, in October 2021. With this strategic acquisition, Petrol now ranks as the second largest supplier of oil products. Moreover, the acquisition further strengthened their presence on the regional markets.
Solution
In producing the concept, we wanted to present the multi-faceted importance of Petrol for people and the business community in a way that would engage viewews. We knew that this can only be achieved with exceptional copywriting, a convincing voice-over, picturesque B-roll footage, graphics with concrete business results and accompanying animations.
We started by writing an emotionally charged voice-over copy. In the first part, it presents all of Petrol’s touchpoints with consumers and general society. In the second part, it focuses mostly on Petrol’s commitment to sustainable development. To truly do justice to the copy, we paid special attention to selecting voice-over artists that would bring the message to life – for the Slovene voice-over, we ultimately decided to go with Ivan Lotrič, whereas the English version was read by Luka Ličar.
The voice-over was equipped with relevant B-roll footage. Some of it was taken from archived footage, and the remainder filmed. This footage was further equipped with graphics depicting concrete business results and an animated glowing band. The latter appears throughout the video as it impersonates the energy from Petrol’s tagline, “Energy for life” and internal slogan, “Energy is us”.
