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(A Name for Rebirth and the Fleetness for the ‘Deer’)
After independence and national sovereignty in 1957, Ghana took the option to open its doors to all nations. The Government then initiated bilateral agreement with countries in the East and the West in pursuit of socio-economic goals through the marketing of its own produce to accelerate the pace of development.
Consequently, the country signed an agreement with Italy for the establishment of an oil refinery at the new port city of Tema. That became necessary because the USSR, a new trading partner, had entered into a barter arrangement of supplying crude oil in exchange for Ghana’s cocoa. There was therefore the need to refine the crude locally.
Representing the Italian Government was the giant petroleum organization called ENI, which built a modern refinery complex then called GHAIP, together with its marketing unit AGIP Limited, to sell petroleum products.
Upon the expiry of ENI’s tenure proprietor ship, the two companies, GHAIP and AGIP, reverted to Ghana, one after the other. Thus, in 1975, AGIP Limited became fully Ghana Government owned petroleum distributor. It became immediately necessary to adopt a new Company name and a corporate logo to reflect the change.
The company sent invitations to Advertising Agencies and Public Relations Consultancies with a tersely worded brief; “Please design the ‘EAGLE’ as concept for a logo to breath freshness into the management of the business of the erstwhile AGIP Limited to be operated by Ghana”.
In fact, the new all-Ghanaian management crew with involvement of the staff had enthusiastically conjured up the idea of an EAGLE as a logo together with a new acronym, GHAPECO (Ghana Petroleum Company), to replace the withdrawn name AGIP Limited and its eight-legged, red-flamed dog logo, which the company always mounted on its slogan ‘supercotemajorie’.
Unusual as it was for an Advertising Agency to defy instructions of a client, the advertising agency, Contact Limited, did just that. The Client’s brief was totally ignored and the Managing Director of the Consultancy wrote a self-explanatory memo to accompany his choice of an appropriate logo together with a name, which he thought was more suitable than the management proposal as a slogan, a colour scheme, and a standard lettering style, all of which were not asked for.
The reasons given by the Managing Director of Contact Limited for his counter proposal were two-fold. Firstly, the EAGLE as a logo had been over-peddled the world over. Fancy in Ghana alone, over twenty-two companies then displayed the bird its varying manifestations as an emblem. “Your brief”. the Managing Director of Contact Limited argued, “talked of a concept to breath freshness into a new management system and presumably a new distinctive corporate image, with an African touch”. “How then should we adopt a hackneyed communicative emblem that lacks relevance to the subject matter?” the Managing Director queried.
Secondly, “the EAGLE is a fearful creature in the Ghanaian folkloric stories. It has un-enviable reputation for violence, and when it attacks, it can remove the eyes of its victim. Akans say “Okoree tutu nipa ani” (The Eagle removes man’s eyes). Aside of these unpalatable comments, the EAGLE has nothing to do with neither petroleum nor motoring, the Managing Director wrote”.
In his opinion therefore, the nearest creature to motoring if an animal should be used was the DEER, which is reputed to be the fastest in the forest”. Akans say, “Otwe, mame anamon” (give me speed Deer) and also “Wotan Otwe a na wayi na mmrika” (You may hate the Deer by you cannot deny its fleetness of foot)”.
He made the point that the appropriateness of a logo in today’s marketing strategy was very important and should serve as a phonographic symbol that, for the sake of brevity, represented a world. In other words, logo had become an important medium of recognizing the corporate identity, its product and service the world over. A logo’s purpose was to communicate, just as words and expressions do. It had to attract attention, compel interest and be pleasing to the eyes of viewer. An effective logo was about the most treasured asset of a Company.
From the foregoing therefore, he presented a running DEER as the Logo and turned attention to the corporate acronym GHAPECO, which was contemplated and wrote it off as something of a tongue twister. Instead, he proposed a name with an oily sound and as vitriolic as the product, namely GOIL (Ghana Oil Company).
The dicey thing about all these proposals, which he put forward, was that the client had asked for no such thing. More so, the selection of a winner was to be on competitive tender of a particular design chosen by the client, which all the other competitors obliged.
Indeed, many interesting and spectacular presentations of the EAGLE were made and among them the breath-taking one Agency which chose to animate the bird. There were varying postures, EAGLE stooping, flying and gliding and so on. As all these various shades of designs of the same bird unfolded, however beautiful they were, it became too obvious that the client go raw artwork lacking communicative message.
It was not surprising therefore that the chairperson of the tender panel, who was the first Ghanaian Managing Director of the Company, picked the deer and remarked, “The presentation is very professional”. The Board subsequently adopted the agency’s proposal in its entirety, which received the endorsement of the Government. There came Ghana Oil Company Limited (GOIL) and its logo.
Credit to Frank Apeagyei, who invented them all.
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