Inspiring 100,000 people to live their brand values

BP is one of the world’s leading integrated oil and gas companies. It provides customers with fuel for transportation, energy for heat and light, lubricants to keep engines moving, and the petrochemicals products used to make everyday items as diverse as paints, clothes and packaging.

At a crucial point in the development of the BP brand, the Central Marketing Team asked Philip to advise them on a series of possible initiatives to help secure and develop BP’s powerful global positioning.

The company had recently rebranded and reinvigorated its corporate positioning with a new identity, fresh brand promise and revised set of values. They wanted Philip to help them create an internal mechanism that would actively promote and recognise the ‘living’ of their new promise and values by their 100,000 employees. Philip suggested a wide range of approaches and the one that caught fire was a new global awards programme for BP that would also integrate existing awards schemes across the BP group.

Philip worked closely with the BP Central Marketing Team to devise an awards programme from the bottom up. At the heart of the awards was BP’s refreshed promise – Positive Energy – that encapsulated their commitment to playing a leading role in meeting the world’s need for energy and materials responsibly. This was supported by BP’s four values: Green, Progressive, Innovative and Performance. They wanted the awards programme to energise the organisation, and create a community of interest that would develop fresh thinking on these important issues.

By replacing a range of earlier awards schemes it was also going to be used to help create a single company culture for BP. The programme Philip devised was named BP Helios* Awards. Four values awards were developed under the umbrella of the top one – the Helios ‘human energy’ award. Philip guided a design team that created all the collateral for the awards programme, from promotion to entering the awards and beyond.
Note: Helios was the Greek sun god – this had guided the development of their new identity two years earlier using the ‘sun burst’ symbol

Philip and his team created a much more upbeat and inspirational awards scheme than had previously existed Within one week of launch over 80% of employees had heard of the BP Helios Awards and over 60% were ‘very much in favour’ of them. In the first year alone, BP Helios had 1,125 team entries against what we had thought was an optimistic expectation of 800. Over 10,000 employees (10% of the total workforce) had been actively involved.

Receiving CEO sponsorship and full Board support, the programme was deemed a huge success and it was topped off by an impressive on-brand global awards ceremony. The great stories that the scheme highlighted were then fed into a knowledge sharing programme via a special intranet site. They were also used in external communications through PR and advertising activity – including displays from Day One in corporate reception areas. Winners became Helios Champions and they helped actively promote the awards in Year Two.