Marathon Oil

New:  Logo & visual system

Launched:  July 1, 2011,
when the spin-out of Marathon Petroleum took effect

Story in brief:
In the oil business, "upstream" means finding and pumping the stuff — "downstream" means refining and selling it. This rebranding enables the separation of Marathon Oil's up and downstream businesses, by spin-out of its downstream subsidiary, Marathon Petroleum. 

Why? According to Wikipedia, "The split was expected by Marathon executives to allow Marathon Petroleum Company to focus more directly on refining, pipeline and marketing portfolio enrichment while exposing each individual company as a possible takeover target. " The parts, in other words, may be worth more than the whole, freed whether to sell themselves or to grow more quickly.

Usually, it's the spun-out business that gets a new logo, if not a new name. But  Marathon's  'M' symbol brands over 5,000 retail service stations in American heartlands, and to change them would be costly indeed. Since Marathon Oil's leaders themselves had no appetite for a name change, there would now be two Marathon's in the same industry;  obviously, Marathon Oil would have to look very different.  This was the design challenge assigned to the Houston-based agency BrandExtract (who for over a decade had managed the company's Web presence).  

To get started, in place of the usual management interviews BrandExtract conducted a comprehensive survey of employees (managers included, to be sure), to uncover their defining dreams and values .  According to Guy Parker, BrandExtract's Chief Creative Officer, employees responded with surprising passion as well as creative detail (including unsolicited logo ideas, leaning toward red-white-blue swooshes). And happily, leaders and employees were pretty well on the same page in choosing the eight defining brand attributes that would guide design... nimble, driven, focused, innovative, energetic, socially responsible, global and ethical.

Because there are now two Marathons out there, neither can rely on the communicative name Marathon alone; they must add "Oil" or "Petroleum," signing themselves with their formal names. (Both have gone further, at least for the moment, adding "Corporation,"  apparently hoping to reinforce perceived autonomy.)   The name predominates, but BrandExtract's  designers felt that addition of a new and different symbol, too, would be the best way to show that Marathon Oil is a new and different Marathon — thus the "energy wave" symbol (in clean, unpolluting colors, you will note).  (Note also the optical illusion;  seen as 3D, is the wave moving toward or away from you?) 

The symbol is also a source of the visual tools (curves, colors) which were then used to construct the new corporate visual system you can see (in development) at www.marathonoil.com.

Credits:
C.E.O. - Clarence Cazalot
Identity design - BrandExtract, a Houston-based full service agency
 

First Impressions:
Naming strategy:  I get it; at the wellhead it's oil, after processing it's petroleum. But still, to most of us these are interchangeable descriptors; for us the coexistence of  "Marathon Oil" and "Marathon Petroleum" invites confusion.  If these entities are to grow and prosper in autonomy, indeed potentially in competitive alliances, must they share virtually interchangeable formal-name descriptors as well as a master brand?  This strikes me as inherently an unstable condition (so bring on an acquirer).
Design: The symbol is appealing, and it works well as a differentiator.   I wish, however, for somehow a greater visual affinity of  the symbol to the wordmark (whether via letterforms, alignment, size relationship or some of all).   When "Corporation" is removed from the signature ( see below), this balance can perhaps be reviewed.  

Other Comments:
In both new corporate signatures, Marathon Petroleum as well as Marathon Oil, the inclusion of  "Corporation" is visually costly clutter,  communicatively expendable. It belongs in the address block (if anywhere) and in first mention in press releases. Lose it from the logo.
 

Corporate Brand Matrix ratings:  
40% structural,  60% strategic,  0% functional (est.)