Seplat Brand Audit
Project Scope
Seplat Energy entered a “Transformative Growth” phase in 2024–2025, evolving from a small indigenous hybrid into a strong regional player with global aspirations. This audit was commissioned to evaluate the brand's health following significant industry shifts, including the aggressive expansion and integration of Mobil Producing Nigeria Unlimited (MPNU) assets.
The brand audit was commissioned to evaluate how well the corporate identity, market narrative, and stakeholder perceptions kept pace with this strategic step‑up, and to identify where friction points were emerging as the business scaled.
Objectives
- Conduct a comprehensive examination of brand performance and overall health
- Map stakeholder perceptions (regulators, investors, host communities, employees, media) to pinpoint strengths, blind spots, and misalignments created by growth and integration.
- Identify internal and external obstacles resulting from rapid expansion and integration.
- Confirm if the brand's mission and vision are still aligned with market realities and the energy transition journey.
Our Approach
FIRST STEP
- The process began with Fixing the Fundamentals, asking critical questions about the company's identity and business purpose. The agency conducted benchmarking against nine industry peers across local, hybrid, and international categories to establish a sustainable base for the brand.
SECOND STEP
- The audit expanded to include deep-dive qualitative and quantitative research across internal and external groups:
- Internal: A survey of 78 employees across Engineering, Projects, and Subsurface units to gauge strategic alignment and "Innovation Readiness".
- External: Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) in host communities (Amukpe, Sapele, Owerri, and Eket) to evaluate the "Social License to Operate".
- Regulators and investors: Interviews with institutional investors and regulators (NUPRC, NMDPRA, ARCON) to assess compliance and ethical standing.
THIRD STEP:
- The final step involved distilling insights to map the Conversation Map and Brand Architecture. The agency compared the brand's "Indigenous Champion" narrative against the practical "B2B Awareness Gap".
Result
- Market Leadership: The audit identified that Seplat is the definitive leaderamong the local players in the oil and gas sector, commanding a 39% Share of Voice in 2025.
- Operational Excellence: The brand maintains a world-class safety record of 15.3 million LTI-free man-hours.
- High Strategic Alignment: 91.2% of the organisation’s staff are familiar with and believe in the current business strategy.
- Regulatory Trust: Regulators consistently rate Seplat “compliant, collaborative, ethical,” citing PIA‑aligned behavior and safety discipline.
- Growth Friction Areasidentified: Lack of meeting some host communities’ expectation, Internal Execution Gaps and Digital lag when compared against IOCs.