When I was growing up we actually had a favorite gas station. I can only imagine the reaction from Gen Xers and Millennials.
It was Obie and Doc’s and we had “traded” (as my dad would say) with them for years. Friendly. Full service. Check the oil. Check with wiper fluid. No cash? No problem; put in on my tab. We never considered going to another gas station unless we went out of town.
That sounds so foreign today with gas stations and oil company brands seemingly racing for the generic. What’s the difference between a Shell and a Mobil? Sorry, Exxon/Mobil. The ubiquitous nature of gas stations makes even location (“closest to me”) no longer as significant as is which side of the intersection is it on. (There is a Shell station near me that recently went out of business because its NE corner was not as convenient to traffic flow as the NW corner where the BP now thrives).
While Shell, BP and Exxon/Mobil all arm wrestle for low price and convenience, there is another company that has embraced a different strategy. It is described in “Blue Ocean Shift” by W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne, as “shifting away from the red ocean of competition to a blue ocean of differentiation and low cost.”
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