Crude oil isn’t the easiest of brands to promote. It’s expensive, environmentally unfriendly and ugly. This task becomes especially difficult if you happen to be BP, and one of your oil rigs has exploded and is leaking into the waters of the richest country in the world. Even without the inevitable, distressing photos of oil-smeared sea-life, this is undeniably a publicity nightmare.
In the headlining article of 16th February issue of PR Week, Nikki Watts and Matt Cartmell state how BP is ‘in talks with a number of PR agencies (…) to promote its London 2012 Olympic partnerships’[1]. BP, along with six other companies, namely: Lloyds TSB, EDF Energy, Adidas, British Airways, BT and BMW; are the only companies allowed to attach the London 2012 logo and the Olympic rings. BP will also support the cultural Olympiad, a four-year programme of cultural events across the UK.
Undoubtedly BP’s support to London 2012 will positively raise its profile, but it is not enough to revive its image. Additionally, it does not focus on those worst affected by the Deepwater Horizon spill, namely the residents and businesses surrounding the Gulf of Mexico. As BP were announced as partners of the London 2012 Olympics in 2008, one would assume a further strategy should be put in place in order to withdraw BP from the shadows of the 2010 oil spill.
What would be more effective is for BP to focus their PR strategy on community action in the worst suffering areas. According to BP’s website, the company have established a $100 million fund for unemployed deep-sea miners. However, in the same press release, BP state that miners helped are in this position due to ‘result of the moratorium on deepwater drilling imposed by the United States federal government’[2].
By directly laying blame upon the US government in the opening lines of their press release, BP are offending the focal institution whom they should be working with to resolve the dilemma. Although the disaster was an accident, BP and the US government share responsibility for its occurrence. Both should be supporting each other to focus on the lives severely affected by the crisis, rather than wasting energy scapegoating the other.
Focusing upon the future of BP’s image, a longer strategy should be emplaced. This should do two things: firstly, focus on bettering the image with the future generation of the affected areas. Secondly, internationally assign BP with an image of community, akin to other global companies who have had negative publicity e.g. Coca-Cola or McDonald’s. With these in place, BP will revive its image in the places of the world where the BP image has most suffered.
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