Oil Company Advertising Trivia Quiz

Answer: Exxon

Exxon operates all over the world. In many countries, they still carry the Esso brand. One promotional campaign in the 70s involved giving miniature tiger tails to their customers to hang from their gas caps.

Answer: Sinclair

With headquarters in Salt Lake City, Sinclair uses the green dinosaur to represent the prehistoric origins of oil formation.

Answer: Mobil

Mobil was one of the spin-offs from the Standard Oil break-up, and built itself into a huge conglomerate. At one time, Mobil even owned the Montgomery-Ward retail chain. Mobil merged with Exxon in 1999, and the Mobil logo is still used on some of ExxonMobil's products.

Answer: Shell

Shell's marketers have used catchy names for decades to help convince the consumer that their gasoline is better than the fuel offered by their competitors. "Platformate", "Vektron 3000", "Optimax", "V-Power", and "Nitrogen-enriched" are just some of the phrases used in their advertising campaigns over the years.

The truth is that in developed countries, gasoline quality is dictated by government standards and specifications which all producers must meet. Your car will run just fine on gasoline from any reputable marketer, as long as you fill it with the proper octane rating.

Answer: Texaco

That was better than their earlier jingle from the '50s: "Oh, we're the men from Texaco, we work from Maine to Mexico." Texaco was the first oil company to market fuel in all of the contiguous 48 US states.
Texaco (The Texas Company) was an independent company for 100 years before agreeing to a merger with Chevron in 2001.

Answer: Total

In 1999, Total and Fina merged. Then, a year later the two French giants Elf and TotalFina merged. For a short while, it carried the unmanageable name TotalFinaElf, which prompted some of the UK news media to use the anagram Elaffantt Oil to refer to the amalgamation. In 2003, the combined company name was changed to Total.

Answer: Saudi Aramco

Saudi Aramco was originally founded as the Arab American Oil Company, a joint venture between the Saudi government and several American oil companies. Saudi Arabia nationalized the oil operations in 1980 as Saudi Aramco. In 2010, Saudi Aramco's oil production was in excess of 8 million barrels (336 million gallons) per day.
CNPC is the Chinese national oil company, PDVSA is the national oil company of Venezuela, and Statoil is the national oil company of Norway.

Answer: Phillips

Phillips Petroleum was founded by two brothers in 1917. The '66' in the name came from the US highway running through Oklahoma that was used to test their fuel early on.
That same highway gave rise to a song "Get Your Kicks on Route 66", by Asleep at the Wheel, and a '60s American TV show "Route 66", starring Martin Milner and George Maharis.
Phillips and Conoco merged operations in 2002.

Answer: British Petroleum (BP)

In the late-'90s, BP spent millions to advertise themselves as the environmentally sound oil operation, going so far as to describe themselves in adverts as "Beyond Petroleum".
Since then, BP's green image has been smudged by a number of accidents and oil spills. A refinery explosion in Texas in 2005 killed 15 workers. In 2006, a pipeline rupture in Alaska spilled 200,000 gallons of oil. And the 2010 explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico killed 11 people and caused one of the worst oil spills in history.

Answer: Premium gasoline is better for your car

All of the answers are marketing hype, but the one that costs you the most is octane. Big oil companies have made billions over the years by convincing motorists that if you really care about your car, you'll buy premium gasoline.
The reality is that the majority of cars on the road in the US will run just fine on 87 octane [(R+M)/2]. There are some makes/models that need premium octane, and these are shown clearly in the owners manual.
Similarly, in Europe the lion's share of vehicles run well on 95 RON petrol.
Running premium or super fuel in a vehicle that only needs the regular grade is a big waste of money. (Next time you pass a gas station, check the price difference between Regular and Premium.)