Rebranded, from
the ground up

Afriquia, the largest petroleum retailer in Morocco, has launched a new brand and retail forecourt identity, which will be implemented across their 500 station network over the next three years.

Afriquia’s CEO/Director General Said El Baghdadi said, "We worked for more than two years on the consolidation of our brand, to bring it even closer to consumers and to position ourselves as a benchmark in Morocco. We are aiming to align our level of service with the standards of Europe and North America – Afriquia demands no less."

The Brand

The new brand and retail concept was developed by Branding by Garden in London. The system maintained the heritage of the waveform canopy design, created a more contemporary colour pallet including a new Afriquia corporate blue combined with a brighter and warmer secondary system.

The brand extends to all applications, across Tier 1, 2 and 3 stations as well as the servicing offering AutoGo.

Our responsibilities included:

1. On site survey and technical documentation of 100 high profile locations
2. Site layout design and documentation for brand application
3. Design resolution of the concept to meet network requirements
4. Structural engineering to ensure conformity for the harsh Moroccan environment.
5. Value engineering of the signage product to meet tight budgetary requirements
6. Engineering and production documentation in three languages, (Arabic, French & English)
7. Four prototype sites for testing and evaluation
8. Implementation of the new system to 44 high profile locations.

Structural Challenges

The Bernoulli affect acting on such an aerodynamic canopy shape along with the extreme wind conditions of the North African Atlantic coast required Harkess-Ord to develop a unique approach to canopy structure engineering and water drainage. This including automated robotic steel beam fabrication, which provided the necessary strength, as well as the integration of the fall requirements of the roof into a modularized system for multiple island configurations to achieve maximum roll-out efficiency.

Commenting on the technical development of the new aerodynamic canopy design, Harkess-Ord’s CEO, Graeme Ord said, "Our engineers had a real challenge to overcome with the uplift forces generated by the aerofoil canopy shape under wind conditions, but the result is spectacular and creates an architecture that is distinctly Afriquia.”

AutoGo Rebrand

Extending the brand across all customer touch points meant a reinvention of the entire service offering including the restaurants, convenience stores and the service and repair shops. Rapid Auto was rebranded to AutoGo and we were responsible to extend this brand into the new architecture.