Midwest gas and convenience chain Pump & Pantry (P&P) is continuing its total brand revamp by introducing a campaign featuring an Elvis impersonator as one of its singing consumers.
The work, developed with Slugger Creative, encourages signups for
the chain’s new loyalty program, Pumped Up Rewards, by showcasing a variety of customers singing “pump up my day” as they pump their gas. The spot ends with a sullen-looking hockey
mom grimacing to ask “do I have to?” before the fake Elvis tells her no. The voiceover promotes the benefits of the program.
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The 30-second commercial runs on local TV, while characters from the spot will appear in promotional banners inside the stores. “The
jingle’s been out there for a year, so this was a way to leverage that equity in a fun, simple way,” said Brandon Beck, senior director of marketing at Bosselman Enterprises, parent of
Pump & Pantry. “We explain all the particulars in other marketing materials, from the store to email and social media.”
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Slugger plans to further build on the campaign over the spring and summer to celebrate P&P’s 50th anniversary.
“The setup is made for social media and the selfie generation,” says Andrew Ladden, CEO of Slugger Creative. “This makes it fun to be a P&P customer. And it can lead to people posting videos and ultimately auditioning to be in the next iterations of the campaign.”
P&P released the first phase of its makeover in 2019, after Beck and Ladden reignited their longstanding partnership. The pair had earlier rebranded the outdoor company Cabela’s a decade ago, when Beck led Cabela’s brand marketing and Ladden was an executive creative director at Ogilvy.
When Beck arrived at P&P parent company Bosselman in 2018, he called on Ladden, then CCO at Madras,
for a radio jingle.
Then, the two worked to overhaul the chain’s look and feel, changing the palette from a traditional look developed in the 1980s to a blue and yellow that Ladden
calls “a modern, tongue-in-cheek take on the old Fifties service center.”
P&P attributes this chainwide revamp to boosting sales in some locations by more than 50%. “The more we liven up our marketing, the more we see results,” adds Beck.