The BP Oil Spill has indeed surpassed even Exxon-Valdez as being the worst environmental disasters in US history. However, when you look at how they not only handled their social media and public relations practices, but their crisis communication message strategies – you have to wonder what they were thinking.
BP recently came out with their report on what happened during the oil spill that let about 206 million gallons of oil pollute the Gulf of Mexico. Communities and their residents were upset and vocal on what they thought about BP and the situation – and went to traditional media outlets to raise these concerns, but also went to various social media platforms as well. This spill not only impacted the food industry in the Gulf (ex. seafood) and devastated the environment, but also negatively impacted businesses such as restaurants, hotels, and others in the tourism industry in the surrounding areas.
What is still amazing to me as someone working and studying crisis communications, is the lack of responsibility and acknowledgement of wrongdoing by the corporation. In the report according to a news article from Yahoo!, BP does regret what happened during the oil spill, but did not offer any apologizes. Instead, BP shifted the blame on other corporations who where also part of the spill. One of the fundamental things that we are taught in crisis communications is to take responsibility for our actions and make sure that we are doing whatever it takes to make sure that this does not happen again.
Based on these public relations and crisis communication message strategies, it appears to me that BP does not really want to restore their corporate reputation among their stakeholders. It seems that they are doing basically the opposite of what crisis communication professionals advocate for in both in the classroom as well as in practice and research. This case will continue to grow and be discussed for years to come as an example of a PR nightmare – both in how BP handled the crisis in traditional media and face-to-face situations, as well as how they missed many opportunities in their digital PR and crisis communication efforts.
These are just a few of my thoughts on the subject. Hope you all are having a wonderful day!
Best Wishes,
Karen
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