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	June 23, 2010

BP: PR Isn't an Add-On
By: Doug Bedell

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BP has added social media to its belated crisis-response activities, with the help of the prominent PR firm Ogilvy & Mather. Terrific.

BP resorting tardily to social media is like a nuclear power plant shutting down its visitors center, than having to reopen it in a crisis mode when it has a problem.

Good public relations isn't an add-on. It's an integral part of doing things properly from the beginning. Good PR starts on a company's operational side and spreads from a conscientious approach to avoiding problems in the first place. That's what we used to think BP's sunny environmental logo signified. The ghastly Gulf spill shows that a logo is meaningless without a culture behind it that does things well from the start. Beginning with a conscientious CEO who makes it clear that right actions are the only acceptable ones.

"The Gulf spill is a tragedy that never should have happened," is Tony Hayward's (or Ogilvy & Mather's or whomever's) way of opening a Hayward YouTube message on which comments are blocked. A great proactive use of social media. Spare us.

We next hear that Hayward attended a yacht race along the oil-free British coast, on his own boat, of course. He's entitled to some R&R time, BP's PR people explained.

How bush-league (better to mix metaphors than add oil to water) can you get during an epic crisis?

If social media are the new media environment, and increasingly they are, we suspect the public will catch on quickly to BP's attempts to manipulate them. That's not public relations; it's what gives PR a bad name. It's like BP's oil well itself. You can't cap incompetence; it just keeps gushing. Competence means doing things well, systematically so, from the beginning.

– Photo by Ison, Associated Press

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Rob (Georgia)	on 24 Jun 2010 at 10:08 am

Good PR starts on a company's operational side and spreads from a conscientious approach to avoiding problems in the first place. WOW. Who the hell would need ever need a PR firm if mishaps never happened?

Earth Threads (Atlanta, GA)	on 23 Jun 2010 at 11:38 am

Thanks for this great post. And while beating up on BP is still relevant and worthwhile, why don't we take this moment to lavish some well-deserved shame now onto Ogilvy & Mather. Regardless of the huge amount of money BP is paying O&M to cover their dirty, oily asses, O&M should be absolutely ashamed of themselves for essentially jumping onto the same sinking oil barge that is BP. By being BP's new teleprompter of exonerating all responsibility for this tragic and avoidable disaster, I feel O&M are now just as maligned by siding with them. I'd like to see O&M's public image and market value sink like BP's oil rig.

liebackand (Connecticut)	on 23 Jun 2010 at 10:16 am

You might have added that Texaco made exactly the same mistake in the 1980s when it had a PR strategy of "no comment. You want a friend, buy a dog." Seen as arrogant, it was slapped with a judgment of $10 billion. Wealth and power leads to arrogance -- in individuals and organizations. But few guard against it.

Doug Bedell (Central Pennsylvania)	on 22 Jun 2010 at 5:22 pm

Yes, and for Mr. Hayward to say he was "not in the loop" is plain naive. A CEO owns the loop.

Peggy (Omaha, NE)	on 22 Jun 2010 at 3:24 pm

I believe that "doing things properly from the beginning" has been BP's problem all along.

Charles Henderson (Saint Louis, MO)	on 22 Jun 2010 at 1:53 pm

Sadly, BP's extreme and inept approach to communications (not to mention their engineering errors) is sullying the reputation of both the oil industry and those of us who practice public relations. Tony Hayward is either (1) getting bad counsel or (2) he's ignoring the counsel he's getting.

About the Author
Doug Bedell

Doug Bedell has a background in journalism and PR and is the proprietor of Resource Relations in Central PA, which focuses on organizational communication, crisis communication, and social media. His blog, “Beetles Beat,” can be found at www.ResourceRelations.net. On Twitter, he’s DougBeetle.