STP
A New Approach for a Historic Brand
STP is one of the most well-known names in automotive care, and although they have strong brand awareness, consumers struggled to find clarity when it came to differentiating their products against competitors. As STP worked to reposition the brand among consumers, they came to us looking for a fresh perspective.
As partners, we researched competitors and consumers in the category, evaluated their existing creative, and strategized new creative and messaging to distinguish STP from the competition. We brought the new creative and messaging to life across various touch points—including a highly successful digital marketing campaign.
Kicking Strategy Into Gear
We evaluated STP’s existing creative with their new brand proposition and target audience in mind. We identified what was working well, what wasn’t, and why. We then created mood boards to demonstrate improvements and to start bringing the new creative strategy to life.
In addition to visuals, we evaluated messaging—including tone & voice as well as core messages. Though the science and technology behind their products is complicated, using them is easy. Similarly, we wanted their messaging to be straightforward and easy to understand, but not overly simplistic, so not exclude their more experienced audience.
A Comprehensive Brand Book
Once the new visuals and messaging were established, we created a detailed and comprehensive brand book that pulled everything together into a single document. The brand book would be used by both internal and external marketing teams to maintain a consistent brand presence across all touch points, so it was important that we covered everything—from brand identity to brand execution.
Rollin’ Out New Creative
When considering STP’s new creative, we wanted to stay true to the core visual elements that make the brand so recognizable, while still giving it a modern look. We made tweaks to the color palette and altered the way the colors are used. Royal blue became the primary color, Petty light blue is reserved for throwback and racing-specific content, and red is used sparingly to draw the eye to key claims.
The iconic ‘3 stripes’ were incorporated as an element coming from the edge of creative to anchor the logo. Being a pioneer in the category, we selected a bold, all-caps font to help position the brand as an authority, while the condensed style allows for longer headlines.
Often utilizing large background imagery gave the creative a modern feel, while also helping to tell the story with less need for long runs of copy.
The Campaign
With the new creative and content strategy in place, we set out to execute it through a digital marketing campaign for STP’s Fuel Additives. With only seconds of a viewer’s attention to work with, we wanted to create eye-catching creative that quickly established brand awareness—while highlighting product benefits through clear, simple phrases such as ‘Save Gas’ and ‘Combat Deposits’. Utilizing STP’s consumer lab, we tested a variety of messages and creative to understand which were most effective among their target. The campaign was highly successful resulting in a 4.2% increase in purchase intent—8x the industry average.
8.3%
increase in brand recall
(average is 5%)
4.2%
increase in purchase intent
8x the industry average
Authentic and Relatable
Coming out of our creative evaluation, we identified STP’s brand photography as an asset that needed the most improvement. It was too clean and perfect, which made it feel overly staged and unrelatable to an audience that enjoys regularly working on their own vehicles.
We conducted a full-day photo shoot to capture in-use and stand-alone product images that appear authentic—naturally holding the product, crumpled rags, mildly dirty hands and tools—a glimpse into every day moments.
What our client is saying…
“I had the pleasure of working with Leverage to build a new brand book and create a new media campaign for STP. Not only did Leverage develop awesome creative, they exceled in flexibility and communication throughout the process which was incredibly helpful in creating a scope that met our budget requirements and managing scope changes quickly without impacting the quality of deliverables. I look forward to working with Leverage again soon!”
NeilSTP (Energizer)
Reaching a Wider Audience
Building off of the successful digital media campaign, STP wanted to shift focus from their usual racing focused promotion, and create a video that would appeal to a larger audience. By using impactful animatics, motion graphics, and short lifestyle clips, we created a fast-paced video that told the what, how, and why of STP’s fuel additives in just 30 seconds.
