FUEL brand Jet is continuing its push to sign up new independent dealers and sees Scotland as now established as one of its core areas.
Pete George managing director for Phillips66 for UK and Republic of Ireland marketing, told Scottish Grocer the firm wanted to build on the gains announced last year after it signed up five new central Scotland sites for its Jet brand, taking the number of sites north of the border to 51 and the brand’s market share to 22%.
“We don’t have any of our own sites,” he said.
“Our whole network is made up of independent dealers so that pretty much is where we are focused.
“We offer expertise. For instance some of our dealers are not big enough to have a health and safety specialist or a product quality specialist.
“We have them in our organisation and our dealers have free access to them, their numbers are known to our dealers, we are very contactable.”
It’s the 60th anniversary of the Jet brand this year and the company is well into a schedule of special activities as well as some more general work that has included changes designed to refresh the brand.
Brand and communications manager Anne Day said: “We’ve made some changes to the look and feel of our sites, we’ve updated our image, given it a more modern feel. And we’ve addressed some of the feedback we’ve received from dealers.
“For example they want to drive customers into some of the other elements of their site such as their symbol store so we’re giving some more prominence to some of the other brands that they are running alongside Jet”
The anniversary celebrations have started well she said.
“In a prize draw we were offering 14 people around the country the chance to win £5000, which is what we estimate is the difference between what you would pay for fuel today and in 1954.
“We got about 30,000 entries, we’re really pleased and the dealers have given us very positive feedback. They think it has brought people onto their sites and into their stores.”
Pete George reckoned after the problems experienced in Scotland last year with the standoff at the Grangemouth refinery his firm has an especially strong story to tell on fuel security.
Its refinery on the Humber in northern England had a strong claim to being the best in the country and one of the top three in Europe. It has seen consistent investment and modernisation and has a technological edge over other plants, he said.
