Venezuela-owned petroleum marketer CITGO is preparing yet another effort to polish a corporate image seriously tarnished by its association with anti-American dictator Hugo Chavez.  A major polling organization is surveying consumer attitudes and measuring the impact of CITGO’s ongoing campaigns which are coming up short as many Americans vote with their tires and buy gas elsewhere.

CITGO suffered a major blow several years ago when Chavez’ lunatic rantings persuaded the 7-11 company to drop it as a supplier of gasoline for the 7-11 convenience store chain.  CITGO responded with feel-good advertising and partnered with liberal Democrat Joe Kennedy to sponsor a heating-oil giveaway program.  The heating-oil bit makes for good political theater as Kennedy himself drives around doling out fuel and criticizing CITGO’s competitors, see Kennedy Delivers Oil To Elderly Brighton Couple, but evidently such PR has not been enough.

This year’s CITGO campaign is outlined in Citgo Starts Centennial Year With Marketer Roundtables, which relates the following statement of purpose:

Advancing consumer perception of the CITGO brand through programs that directly assist people in need remains a primary goal and is based on the underlying principles of solidarity and social development held by its shareholder, Petróleos de Venezuela S.A. (PDVSA), the national oil company of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.

“Solidarity and social development” being code words for Chavez-style socialism.

One tactic we may see in 2010 is a “BP and Shell are foreign-owned, too!” pitch.  As if foreign ownership, per se, is the problem.  Last time I checked, Great Britain and The Netherlands were not in the hands of anti-American socialist madmen. At the same time, CITGO will emphasis its American roots and put American faces in its ads.

Can any image-enhancement program solve the real problem — that CITGO is controlled by an anti-American dictator? It’s a free country, so I’ll continue to vote with my tires and dollars and buy gas from better sources.