A dramatic, modern forecourt design that places the Moroccan oil company Winxo in an international context

The secret is out. Winxo is the new name of the Moroccan oil company, CMH. Unveiled recently to the public on 3 February, Winxo’s new flower logo identity and forecourt branding marks an important step change for the company and will see customers benefit too.

According to the founding president of the Winxo Group, Hassan Agzenai, "the new identity will facilitate and encourage access to world markets."

Mr. Agenzai’s statement, made on the sidelines of a meeting held Tuesday January 28th in Casablanca, completes the picture that Minale Tattersfield first drew attention to when it presented a striking looking architectural design presented to readers of Insight, NACS Partner for Europe earlier last December.

CMH took the courageous route of rolling out the architectural design without a symbol and name to around a quarter of its retail sites in advance of the official launch scheduled for the following year. Prior to the logo being applied, there was a last-minute teaser campaign to keep everyone guessing and create more impact at the launch.

CMH initially approached a Parisian agency for a new name and symbol but invited Minale Tattersfield in 2010 to develop the flower identity further, especially the three dimensional aspects, so that it could seriously challenge incumbents Shell, Total and Afriquia.

“The architectural forms derived from the soft organic logo shapes are just as radical as the renaming, and have already proved to have a positive impact with consumers,” says Minale Tattersfield’s Head of Energy Retail, David Davis.

“According to Winxo there has been a noticeable uplift in turnover during early rollout phase and before the brand name was applied, suggesting that architectural forms play a significant role in attracting motorists onto the forecourt.”

“Consumer insights revealed that Moroccan’s aspire to the same lifestyle as their European counterparts to the North and have a similarly high expectation when it comes to quality and level of service. For this reason, Winxo was positioned as a local brand of international repute. Winxo had to appear dramatic, modern and above all conform to Moroccan’s expectations of how a European brand would present itself. Key to this strategy was that Winxo must ‘wow’ if it was to stand any chance of taking market share away from its incumbents”, explains Davis.

Winfood is the brand name applied to the food and convenience offer on Winxo highway stations. Comprising a modern 150 sq m c-store and an adjoining 350 sq m self serve restaurant, Winfood caters to locals and tourists alike with a prepared-on-site range of local and international dishes. In addition, shaded outside eating and safe play areas (plus dedicated WC facilities) are all provided to an international standard.

There is also Winwash and Winauto, the respective names of the car wash and service offer. Together, the new forecourt and convenience store design is being rolled out across the whole of Morocco and will eventually comprise of over 200 sites.

CMH chose to stay with Minale Tattersfield for the TV launch campaign which would be filmed out in Casablanca. Being a familiar movie location, it was not difficult to find a competent local film production team to work with Minale Tattersfield’s own directors, producers and creatives, and to put together a compelling campaign; the narrative centres around the petals of the logo and a suggested magic quality.