Esso
- This article is about the trade name. There is also a Dominican band called Esso. ESSO is used for Enterprise Single Sign-on, too.
Esso is an international trade name used by ExxonMobil and its related companies.
In the United States, it was once the subject of much litigation between the Standard Oil companies. In 1911, Standard Oil was broken up into seven regional companies, each with the rights to the brand "Standard" in certain states. Standard Oil of New Jersey 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. In those states, it marketed its products under the brand "Esso", the phonetic pronunciation of the letters "S" and "O". It also used the Esso brand in New York and the six New England states, where the Standard Oil Company of New York (Mobil) had the rights, but did not object to the New Jersey company's use of the trademark (the two companies have since merged). However in the other states, the other Standard Oil companies objected and forced it to use other brand names. In most states the company used the trademark "Enco," and in a few "Humble." The other Standard companies likewise were "Standard" or some variant on that in their home states, and another brand name in other states.
This situation was confusing to travelers. In 1972, Standard Oil of New Jersey renamed itself as the Exxon Corporation, and adopted that trademark throughout the country. It however maintained the rights to "Standard" and "Esso" in the states where it held those rights, by a token effort, branding one station in each state under those names, thus preventing the trademark from being declared abandoned. The other Standards do the same in their states.
In Canada, the Esso brand is used on stations operated by Imperial Oil, which is 69.8% owned by ExxonMobil.
In most of the other countries of the world, the Esso brand and the Mobil brand are the primary brand names of the Exxon Mobil Corporation, with the Exxon brand name basically unknown.
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Esso Blue
Esso Blue was the brand name of Esso's kerosene oil for domestic kerosene heaters in countries where kerosene is known as paraffin (such as the United Kingdom). Their TV advertising song from the 1950s through to the 1970s was the famous Bom, Bom, Bom, Bom, Esso Blue! A later campaign used the well-known song tune of "Smoke gets in your eyes" cleverly re-worded as "They asked me how I knew, it was Esso Blue ... the non-smoking paraffin".
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Categories
ExxonMobil | Chemical companies of the United States | Oil companies of the United States | Automotive companies of the United States | Automotive fuel brands | Companies established in 1911