You Are the Brand

BP Oil: Total Brand Destruction

Sometimes it’s not what you say that delivers your message, but rather the context in which your comments are received. Consider the case of British Petroleum—BP—the company responsible for the largest uncontrolled oil disaster in American history that devastated the Gulf of Mexico.This is a case study that clearly illustrates for all of us that ultimately it is how an organization and its leaders deal with a crisis that firmly establishes the brand and reputation in the marketplace. You Can’t Run from Your Record When it comes to protecting a reputation or brand, the company’s track record can sometimes matter as much as what it says in a moment of crisis. In BP’s case, no matter what company executives said at the time of the Gulf of Mexico catastrophe, their message was received in the context of an abysmal safety and environmental track record. For example, in 2000, by its own admission, BP dumped hazardous waste into Alaska’s North Slope.Then, in 2001, BP promised it would clean up polluted air from its refineries after it reached a settlement with the Department of Justice based on requirements of the Clean Air Act.Then, in 2005, a BP refinery exploded inTexas City, killing fifteen people.At the time, BP apologized profusely and reached an agreement with the federal government to assure that such an incident would never happen again. Then, just four years later, the federal government found that BP had over 700 safety violations of that very agreement and fined the company $88 million. These are just a few examples of the countless incidents in which BP was found to have sloppy and dangerous practices involving its oil refineries—every time, the company apologized and promised to do better. 137 BP Oil Total Brand Destruction Adubato_(Brand)_final 4/11/11 11:29 AM Page 137 So when BP said “sorry” about the Gulf Coast oil spill, that apology was seen in its historical context. Who can blame us for being skeptical of BP’s sincerity given the industry’s track record? Sometimes a company and its leaders can say all the right things. They can apologize. They can promise to fix things and do better. But if that company has a history of saying all the right things and continuing to do all the wrong things, eventually, their stakeholders won’t listen to anything that company has to say when the next crisis hits.There’s no more credibility and no benefit of the doubt offered. At that point, the brand and reputation have been destroyed.That was the case with BP. Its message of contrition bordered on worthless. “Foot in Mouth” Disease BP’s CEO and chief spokesperson at the time of the Gulf oil spill was Tony Hayward. Hayward was trying to communicate a lot of the right things in this crisis, but he failed miserably. His insensitivity to the countless victims of this horrific oil spill served only to erode BP’s brand to the point where it became unsalvageable. Some of Hayward’s most egregious public statements on behalf of BP in the spring and summer of 2010 include the following: “This is not our accident, but it’s our responsibility.”1 (You can’t have it both ways, Tony.) Later, once the BP crisis was nearly fifty days in progress, Hayward actually had the gall to say in public: “I’d like my life back.”2 Hayward was clearly ignoring the fact that so many people, as well as innocent wildlife, would never get their lives back in large part due to BP’s sloppiness, insensitivity, and downright dishonesty in connection with this disaster. From the beginning, Hayward, who was the public face and brand of BP, got it all wrong. BP was reluctant to release any of the video showing the spill in progress until forced by Congress to do so. Hayward would also make some absurd statements implying that the spill wasn’t that big of a deal. Said Hayward: “The Gulf of Mexico is a very big ocean.The amount of volume of oil and dispersant we are putting into it is tiny in relation to the total water volume.”3 Simply put,Tony Hayward took whatever was left of BP’s 138 YOU ARE THE BRAND Adubato_(Brand)_final 4/11/11 11:29 AM Page 138 [18.223.172.184] Project MUSE (2024-04-18 08...