Westfalen AG

Will to act in the crisis

With the vision of mobile payment and the idea for the fillibri brand, we were preaching to the choir at Westfalen AG. "Pay-at-the-pump" was already a topic there and the desire for an app for all petrol stations showed the customer-oriented thinking at Westfalen AG. We then evaluated various usage concepts and developed a proof-of-concept. When Corona came along and made the situation at  tills more difficult, Westfalen made the decision to invest quickly in the digitalization of the payment process and gave the project top priority.

Westfalen AG as an innovation leader

Among the market-dominating international conglomerates Aral (BP), Shell and Total, Westfalen is a small player. Nevertheless, the whole industry in Germany is looking to the Münster-based medium-sized company. In addition to hydrogen filling stations and modern car wash parks, its own digital product innovations such as flexible digital advertising space and mobile payment with fillibri are now being created in cooperation with Zweitag.

Fellow competitors jump on the bandwagon

Admittedly: We were not the first with the idea. In addition to two start-ups, a major corporation has also integrated a payment function into its app. However, this is limited to this one brand and we see the potential to catch up through a better user experience. Other companies are very interested in becoming partners.

Digital product development, straightforward

Project start without changing the org chart

We formed a small team consisting of the start-up coordinator and the head of retail systems at Westfalen AG as well as strategic consultants from Zweitag. Together we analyzed the market, calculated business plans, designed the user experience as well as processes and developed technological proofs of concepts.

Momentum for digitalization achieved through fast results

Let's face it: awareness of the need for digitalization is also reaching German medium-sized companies, but many are struggling to achieve concrete results.

It is also not easy to get into a new work mode alongside existing business with no experience. However, existing gaps in expertise are also difficult to fill through recruiting if the environment for innovation through digitalization is not yet in place. Westfalen did not let this chicken-and-egg situation stop them and decisively broke new ground by commissioning the development.

Ready to go live after only 4 months of development

Within 8 weeks, the iOS app was made available to the first internal beta testers. Quick results create confidence towards a successful project. In another 8 weeks, we completed the app including Android support and payment connection. In the meantime, the project has gained further importance in the Westfalen Group. The step from "You should do..." to execution mode marks the start of a very valuable learning process.

After the development was controlled from within Westfalen, fillibri GmbH & Co KG was spun off for the public release. The autonomy thus created promises to maintain the high speed with which new results and findings are achieved.

Strategy, brand, product, marketing – all from a single source

Fair enough: There are specialized innovation consultancies with a whole squad of talented consultants. There are brand design agencies with impressive track records. There are online marketing, website and social media agencies that have better economies of scale. After all, most people at Zweitag are software engineers and product architects.

However, finding a handful of specialized service providers and bringing them in line takes a lot of energy. The dynamics create friction, no matter how open the service providers are to cooperation.

It is this pain point of our clients that makes us count 3-4 consultants, designers and marketers among us nowadays. We are all united by the highest demands on our work, be it creative or number-oriented.

Westfalen AG has thus hired a well-coordinated team for its fillibri digitalization project, where each of the disciplines go hand in hand:

• Product vision ↔ technological possibilities

• Brand design ↔ user interface implementation

• Brand messages ↔ Advertising design

• Technology ↔ Customer support on social media

This bundling of skills is what made the short time-to-market possible in the first place.

As nimble as a hummingbird - a fresh brand with a simple message

Purposeful, fast and effortless - the hummingbird embodies the brand message of «fillibri»:

• Logo: the silhouette of the hummingbird is reduced to horizontal, beveled stripes to suggest speed

• Name: "fill" picks up on the everyday act of filling up the tank and links it to "Kolibri" (the German word for hummingbird) and "libre" respectively

• Colors: Inspired by the dazzlingly bright plumage, a fresh, lively green and a calm, sublime dark blue, which can be combined differently with white depending on the intended use

The word and figurative mark forms the core; however, a brand is much more than name and logo.

With structure to the central theme

In order for a brand to work, the values that have been worked out have to run through all customer touchpoints like a personality, so to speak. This creates a brand promise that the product must keep.

For this purpose, we have defined a whole series of aspects in a brand guide:

• Brand identity with market positioning, brand purpose, brand promise and personality values

• Target group with personas and customer journeys

• Logo concept, structure and application

• Color palette and application

• Typography with usage variations

• Style and use of illustrations

• Language and tonality

A wide range of uses builds on this brand guide. No matter where a customer notices fillibri,  in social media, online advertising, on a wide variety of advertising spaces at petrol stations, in app stores or the app itself – the brand is presented consistently, and the message is understood.