An open bid to vendors will be posted for 28 days on a procurement website beginning in early September, according to a source at CPC. The source declined to outline qualifications for prospective agencies or the size of the account.
"What we are doing is bringing all of our resources together so that we have more bargaining power, said the source. "We don't have a big budget this year, but we want to increase it."
CPC, despite its massive size and ponderous share of the gasoline market, has done little advertising. It did not need to do so. For nearly 50 years, CPC had a total monopoly on the island's gas pumps.
That ended in 1999 when Formosa Plastics was given rights to refine and retail gasoline. Formosa Plastics has since launched more than 400 gas stations, compared to 1,700 for CPC. Foreign competition now looms on the horizon as well following Taiwan's recent entry into the WTO on January 1.
To date, CPC's most notable foray into advertising was a campaign for a co-branded credit card with Chinatrust last year. The advertising was created by Chinatrust's agency of record, United Advertising.
