Rompetrol Kitchen

In 2017, Rompetrol has been faced with a series of negative articles that had no connection whatsoever with the company`s current activities. Old case files from the time of the previous owner, Dinu Patriciu, as well as two asset seizure actions, affected the image of the company. Most articles were published without the company`s position on the matter, and positive articles had low visibility. In this context, the company felt the need to do something, to make its voice heard. The wave of attacks could only be stopped by means of transparent and direct answers to the questions of the public. It was time for the general audience to have access to the unaltered, unfiltered position of the company.

Our solution? We created our own talk show, in partnership with an important daily publication, Adevarul. We placed ourselves in a situation of attack so that we can have the opportunity of reacting. We called it ”The Rompetrol Kitchen” and built a real kitchen at the company head office. There, the managers answered openly to the most uncomfortable questions from a famous talk show host, Catalin Stefanescu – a journalist with an untarnished reputation. Two weeks before starting the show, we invited the Facebook community to ask us questions. Apart from these, Catalin had the freedom to ask his own questions. We censored nothing, we made no requirements – we wanted this to be a genuine gesture of transparency.

On the platform adevarul.ro, we launched a new column ”From Rompetrol`s Kitchen”, where we published all our shows. On the day of publishing, each video interview was accompanied by an online and a print article – written by journalists from Adevarul, based on the information obtained from the interview.

No question remained unanswered. We covered the company`s main fields of activity, from HR, sales, marketing, financial services and refineries, all the way to top management. We answered questions about the gasoline prices, processes, the relationship with the former shareholder, wages within the company, the relationship with the Romanian authorities, and the image of oil & gas companies.

During the 6 interviews (a total of 2 hours of talk), we answered a total of 80 questions, 55 of which we received from the public. There were more than 2500 interactions with posts by KMG International and 525.470 video views. The reach was 968,263, and the number of impressions,  168,358. Considering the success of the campaign, we decided to continue the project with a second edition.