We welcome Ben back to CHARGE for the second consecutive year. Ben will be leading a practical simplicity workshop at CHARGE, sharing the latest findings from Siegel+Gale’s World’s Simplest Brands study and using Aramco as a real-world case study to explore how simplicity can work across different parts of a brand.
1. Why is simplicity particularly important for energy brands?
It has been another year of uncertainty in the industry, and the world in general. The focus of this year’s Charge Europe is building agile energy brands in a disrupted world, which is more important than ever, and simplicity is a really important input into this. We are really excited to hear all the stories from the other attendees, and to build on this narrative in Florence.
2. Energy companies deal with a lot of complexity. How can research help make sense of that
complexity?
Complexity tends to come from two different places – there is the complexity from within, and the complexity from outside. Complexity from within is arguably more in our control, but still needs rigorous research to measure and manage. For example, research to understand your people, and their engagement and alignment. Or research to understand your customers, and their specific needs and experiences. The complexity from outside, as we’ve seen over the past few years, is a lot harder to foresee, and so it’s essential to measure brand equity and reputation across all your stakeholders – prospective talent, prospective customers, policy makers, investors, influencers. And to monitor the changes in the market, and trends. We often talk about the need for insight, but also balancing it with hindsight and foresight.
3. What role did research play in the evolution of the Aramco brand?
We’ve worked with Aramco for nearly 10 years, and research, insights and intelligence have been the through-line of our relationship. Research provided the business case that unlocked Aramco’s journey into brand and comms, it showed the return on brand investment and most importantly if provided the direction to optimise and sharpen deployment. The brand has gone on a long journey of growth and maturity, and regardless of how you feel about the business or oil and gas I think there is a lot to learn.
4. Aramco is a large global brand. What did simplifying the brand identity involve?
Simplicity isn’t about reductionism, it’s about focus. It’s about going back to the singular central brand idea, and re-thinking how we express it for the desired audience. Aramco had an institutional identity, but not that core idea. People only saw it as a vehicle for Saudi Arabia. So the first job was to define Aramco’s proposition to the world. We also had to clearly define the audience of the brand. This then provided the lens through which we could decide what to retain, what to refresh and what to retire from the institutional brand identity, and what was missing once we stretched further into external arenas.
5. What does simplicity mean when you move from the brand itself to the customer experience?
We often say that simplicity is about clarity and authenticity, which then allows you to connect with the people who matter most. Our latest findings from the World’s Simplest Brands show that simpler energy brands are rewarded with higher consideration and more loyal customers and earn deeper trust. Obviously for energy brands, with dense portfolios of products or complex architecture from acquisitions, this is very very important. Simple comms, simple
visuals and a simple strategy aren’t enough.
6. How does simplicity help the brand’s visibility and identity at major events e.g the World Cup
and Formula 1?
These major events are filled with noise – both literally and figuratively. To cut through the noise you need a really clear message, based on a simple but rich idea. Showing up is not enough. You have to help fans of the sport to understand why you are there, and why it matters. For the first few seasons of F1 the fans were against Aramco, you saw it in the blogs and social media, but Aramco was successful in showing its commitment to the sport, including grass roots drivers and to F2 and F3, not just F1. Aramco kept things simple with activations, but not shallow. And after a few seasons, once the connection was established and accepted, the focus moved to synthetic fuels – which is useful and authentic, and really cemented Aramco’s connection to Formula 1.
7. What are some of the common mistakes companies make when they try to simplify their
brands?
One risk is that companies confuse basic with simple. The other is that they lose sight of who they are. What we are ultimately trying to find is the irreducible, purest expression of your brand, without losing anything essential. Another common mistake is that simplicity is expected to be ever-green or static. Brands have to evolve and grow, in line with the market, the customer, its growing portfolio and the business.
8. What can energy brands learn from the Aramco example, regardless of their size or market?
Well, one big learning is that becoming an agile energy brand doesn’t happen over-night. As I just mentioned, it takes a series of strategic moves. Aramco started from a very low base, having not activated the brand in nearly 90 years, and so it was a process or evolution. Another is that simple is smart. Being clear, empathising with the audience and being authentic are proven to help energy brands to achieve a deeper connection.
9. And for those attending your workshop at CHARGE, what will participants be able to take away and apply to their own brands?
We are really excited about the session. We will review the top 5 drivers of simplicity for energy brands in 2026 during the workshop, coming from our latest World’s Simplest Brands research, so some really tangible branding levers to takeaway. And we are going to bring this to life with the Aramco story. But more importantly we are going to collectively discuss attendees’ own Confidential – Not for Public Consumption or Distribution experiences and add to the WSB findings, to come up with our own interpretation and to commit to being simplifiers in 2027. So hopefully everyone leaves the session being clear on what simplicity means for B2B decision-makers, and a commitment to simplicity.