Pretty in Petrol
Iceland's popular gas station and a lesson in color.
Color is one of the most underrated means of differentiating your brand. You can stand out from the crowd immediately just from choosing a unique color palette.
Somewhere along the cloudy, rainy bus ride from Keflavik Airport to Reykjavik, sat a 32-year old designer aghast at a roadside branding phenomenon.
A gas station coated in a hot layer of bright pink all over the exterior of the building. It was fascinating and kinda hard to believe that it wasn’t a donut shop until I saw the pink pump handles to match the walls. Obviously, I had to write about it.
The brand is called Orkan, they’re a gas station only found in Iceland. From what I could see, there were two other major players in their market, Olís and N1. To show you just how much the color stands out, here are pictures of all three:
Why does color matter?
Well, you can say color doesn’t and that the price or the amenities a gas station can provide should be the first focus… and you’re right. Just take a look at what a brand like Buc-ee’s has done with reimagining what a gas station could be on the basis of simply being awesome. But, I would argue this: it’s entirely possible for any gas station to upgrade its service quality, tweak its pricing, and make the overall experience awesome and they should!
Going the extra mile while selling a commodity like gas is a no-brainer for brand building. Any smart marketer would advocate to match, if not exceed, the table stakes elements of a market.
None of them, however, can claim a bold color like pink without being labeled a copy cat, which is why it pays to be bold first. And when you’re driving down the road trying to find a spot to fuel up, you can literally spot Orkan a mile away. N1 and Olís, not so easily.
I can hear the naysayers reviewing their creative direction now, “a gas station in pink? It’ll never sell, it’ll never get taken seriously, and no one will trust it.”
Last I checked, the group Orkan sits inside was doing about 75 billion krónur a year, and fuel is 30% of that. Call it 22 billion. On an island of 400,000 people, which sounds like nothing until you find out Icelanders own almost a car each, one of the highest rates on the planet, and have to drive absurd distances to get anywhere. I’d say they’re kicking ass.
It’s not about the color so much as it is about being brave and owning that hot pink like you were born into it.
Petrol looks pretty in pink.
— Zach
