Esso

Postcards depicting Esso gas stations in Tennessee (left) and Pennsylvania

In 1911, Standard Oil was broken up into 34 companies, some of which were named Standard Oil and had the rights to that brand in certain states (the other companies had no territorial rights). The name Esso is the phonetic pronunciation of the initials 'S' and 'O' in the name Standard Oil.[5] Standard Oil Company (New Jersey; "Jersey Standard") had the rights in that state, plus in Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and the District of Columbia. By 1941, it had also acquired the rights in Pennsylvania, Delaware, Arkansas, Tennessee, and Louisiana.

Esso enamel steel sign in Manhattan, NYC photographed in 1938 using Agfacolor.

Historic Esso station in South Carolina, pictured in 2017

It also used the Esso brand in New York and the six New England states, where the Standard Oil Company of New York (Socony-Vacuum, later Socony Mobil) had the rights, but did not object to the New Jersey company's use of the trademark (the two companies did not merge until November 1999). However, in the other states, the other Standard Oil companies objected and, via a 1937 U.S. federal court injunction, forced Jersey Standard to use other brand names.[6] In most states the company used the Enco ("Energy Company") brand name, and in a few, the Humble brand name. The objections were mostly made by Standard Oil of Ohio and, in the 1960s, Standard Oil of California (now Chevron Corporation) after their acquisition of former Esso jobber Standard Oil of Kentucky. The other major Standard Oil spinoff, Standard Oil of Indiana (which became Amoco) largely didn't object due to the Midwestern United States being a weaker market for Esso. Likewise, The Ohio Oil Company, which eventually became Marathon Oil, didn't market its downstream assets under the Standard name due to Sohio and Amoco owning the rights to the name in its core Midwestern territory.

The other Standard companies likewise were "Standard" or some variant on that name in their home states, and another brand name in other states. Esso ranked 31st among American corporations in the value of World War II production contracts.[7]

During the years of racial segregation in the United States, Esso franchises gave out The Negro Motorist Green Book: An International Travel Guide.[8][9]

In 1973, Standard Oil of New Jersey renamed itself Exxon Corporation, and adopted the Exxon brand name throughout the country. It maintained the trademark rights to the Standard and Esso brands in the states where it held those rights by selling Esso Diesel in those states at stations that sell diesel fuel, thus preventing the trademark from being declared abandoned.

Esso gas station in Lares, Puerto Rico, 1942. The Esso brand name remained there until 2008.

Esso price bar in Finland

It retained the Esso brand in Puerto Rico and the United States Virgin Islands until 2008, when it sold its stations there to TotalEnergies.[10]

The Enco brand name was used on locations in the Midwest until 1977, when they were sold to Cheker Oil Co. (now part of 7-Eleven[11]); Exxon continues to have a presence in southern Ohio today (as it does throughout much of Appalachia in general), though Mobil is the company's primary brand in the Midwest.

Station signage at an Exxon station in Columbus, Ohio, featuring the Esso logo, while BP owns the rights to the Standard Oil name in Ohio.

In February 2016, ExxonMobil successfully asked a U.S. federal court to lift the 1930s, trademark injunction that banned it from using the Esso brand in some states. By this time, as a result of numerous mergers and rebranding, most of the remaining Standard Oil companies that had objected to the Esso name had been acquired by BP.[6] ExxonMobil cited trademark surveys in which there was no longer possible confusion with the Esso name as it was more than seven decades before. Neither BP nor Chevron (which had minimized the use of the Standard name in the 1970s) had any objection to lifting the ban.[6]

ExxonMobil did not specify whether they would now open new stations in the U.S. under the Esso name; they were primarily concerned about the additional expenses of having separate marketing, letterheads, packaging, and other materials that omit Esso.[12] The Esso name did return to minor station signage at both Exxon and Mobil stations, which also had the effect of ExxonMobil de facto claiming the Standard trademark in Colorado, Kentucky, Montana, North Dakota, Oklahoma and Wyoming as Chevron withdrew from Kentucky in 2010 and BP gradually withdrew sales from the other states.

An Esso service station in Wetherby, West Yorkshire, England (2010)

In 1888, the Anglo American Oil Company opened its head office in London, which eventually became a part of Esso.[13] In August 1998, Tesco announced a partnership with Esso, opening chains of Tesco Express stores located within forecourts, which continues today.[14] In February 2000, the two companies were opening one new store a month, creating 4,000 jobs.[15]

Esso is ExxonMobil's primary gasoline brand worldwide except in Australia, Guam, Mexico, Nigeria, and New Zealand, where the Mobil brand is used exclusively. In Canada (since 2017), Colombia, Egypt, and formerly Malaysia (until 2013, when Petron (the former Esso Philippines) acquired ExxonMobil's Malaysian operations)[29] and Japan (until 2019), both the Esso and Mobil brands are used. In Hong Kong and Singapore, Mobil brand is applied on Esso fuel tank after Mobil service stations began to merge with Esso since 2006.

Mobil is ExxonMobil's primary retail gasoline brand in California, Florida, New York, New England, the Great Lakes and the Midwest. Exxon is the primary brand in the rest of the United States, with the highest concentration of retail outlets located in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Texas and in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern states.

Esso advertising in France (left) for Essolube motor oil and Argentina (right) for petroleum ether

In the 1960s, campaigns featuring heavy spending in different mass media channels became more prominent. Esso spent hundreds of millions of dollars on a brand awareness campaign built around the simple and alliterative[30] theme, "Put a Tiger in Your Tank", which was invented by Emery Smith in 1959.[31][32]

The North American and later European campaign featured extensive television and radio and magazine ads, including photos with tiger tails supposedly emerging from car gas tanks, in England there were faux tiger tails with pink ribbons to tie round underneath the cap of the petrol tank so as to look as if there was a tiger in the tank: these were often seen on the road in the 1960s; at one time in England there was a television advertisement where a sombre man labelled as the advertising manager said that they were no longer going to have the tiger, followed a short while later with advertisements for the save the tiger campaign, promotional events featuring real tigers, billboards, and in Europe station pump hoses "wrapped in tiger stripes" as well as pop music songs.[32] Tiger imagery can still be seen on the pumps of successor firm ExxonMobil.

Esso, along with its sister brands Exxon and Mobil, are official long-term recommended gasoline of two Volkswagen Group marques (mainly Bentley and Porsche), all Toyota Group marques and subsidiaries (including Toyota, Lexus, Daihatsu, Hino, and Perodua, shared with Petronas, Eneos and Petron), General Motors marques and subsidiaries (including Chevrolet (shared with Shell), Cadillac, Buick, Holden, and former GM marques such as Opel (shared with Shell along with Chevrolet) and Vauxhall) and Honda (including Acura, shared with BP, TotalEnergies and its subsidiary, Elf Aquitaine) for automobiles. They are also recommended fuels for Honda motorcycles.

Esso sponsorship on a Peugeot 206 (left) and a Toyota 90C-V race car

Formula One team Lotus had Esso sponsorship from 1962 until 1967 while sponsoring Indianapolis 500 winner and Formula One world champion Jim Clark as well as Brabham from 1964 until 1973. From 2002 to 2009, Esso sponsored Toyota F1, as well as Jordan and its successor, Midland in 2005 and 2006, after Esso became ExxonMobil's global primary fuel brand through the merger of Exxon with Mobil in 1999. Williams F1 had one season of Esso sponsorship in 2009 when Petrobras left F1 in 2008 before they returned in 2014. The Esso brand was used in McLaren Formula One cars along with Mobil from 2014 despite Esso actually partnering and supplying fuels for McLaren team from 2015 to 2016 seasons, as well as Exxon from 2015 in United States Grand Prix only, as they are currently ExxonMobil brands after the merger. In 2017, ExxonMobil switched to Red Bull Racing, as well as Faenza-based sister team Scuderia Toro Rosso for one season only.

Enco, as sister brand of Esso before both renamed as Exxon in 1973, had sponsored three Indianapolis 500 winning cars in 1965, 1967 and 1968, won by Jim Clark, A. J. Foyt and Bobby Unser, powered by Ford for 1965 and 1967 seasons, and Offenhauser for 1968 season.

Esso is also active in 24 Hours of Le Mans and various endurance racing, sponsoring Martini Lancia from 1982 to 1986, Le Mans-winning Peugeot 905 from 1990 to 1993, and Toyota GT-One in 1998–99. Esso is also a racing fuel supplier for Corvette Racing (for FIA World Endurance Championship, shared with VP Racing Fuels for non-WEC races). Since 1996 Esso currently supplying fuels for all Porsche Mobil 1 Supercup entrants under Mobil brand as ExxonMobil increased its fuel partnership role with Porsche Mobil 1 Supercup as Esso since the 2015 season.

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