Petronas: Sponsorship of motorsports built up company’s lube brand

Petronas, Malaysia’s national oil company, may have reached the peak of branding with motorsports events. Currently, Petronas logos are on the MercedesGP cars of seven-time world champion Michael Schumacher and his teammate, Nico Rosberg. Petronas has sponsored the Sepang F1 Circuit known as the Petronas Formula One Malaysian Grand Prix, the Chinese Grand Prix and the South Korean Grand Prix. The company’s involvement in motorsports began in 1988, with a sponsorship of a local rally team, later expanding to Formula One in 1995. Sponsoring the Red Bull-Sauber Petronas F1 team, which according to the company website, was the first bold step at positioning Petronas as a global brand, put Malaysia on the world map. Petronas Motorsports head Anita Azrina Abdul Aziz said, “The appearance of our branding at the Chinese and Korean GP’s is the result of our continued good relations with the champion organizers.” She stated that the benefits gave Petronas the opportunity to make its brand highly visible. The sponsorship agreement and partnership with Mercedes, “is a partnership that allows us to not just build the brand but also to grow the business and develop our products,” she said. In addition to being the title partner, Petronas is also the technology partner of the Mercedes GP-Petronas Formula One Team. Importantly, the partnership affords us, through our lubricant business arm, the opportunity to work on a lubricant and fluids supply arrangement not just with the team but also with Daimler-Mercedes for road cars in key markets.” (March 25, 2011)