BP offers new public service: How to mis-manage Crisis PR
Monday, May 24, 2010 at 20:41 Oh, yippee. BP is giving us crisis communications professionals a giant lesson in how NOT to manage a giant corporate screwup.
First: They can’t seem to agree on the number of barrels a day that are leaking out into the ‘used to be clear, blue waters’ of the Gulf of Mexico. 2,000, 5,000, a gazillion? Uh, it’s 5,000. But, lookit - you’ve got live feed of a boatload of oil still gushing out and you just said you’re sucking 5,000 up the tube. Could it be that NPR’s estimates of a much larger spill had to be true? Do the math, dipshits. Somebody needs to grab hold of these numbers, right/wrong/or indifferent and ‘own’ them. Immediately.
Second: They need a single BP spokesperson as a reliable, likeable ‘face’ of the event. That person should, of course, not be Bob Blankenship from Massey Energy. BP should get a Crisis Communication Professional who actually has some PR creds rather than a legacy of nasty anti-regulatory/anti-government videos on YouTube. Nice move there, Massey Energy. BP is damn lucky, in the absence of talent from their stable to have the Coast Guard’s Rear Admiral Mary Landry. Isn’t it interesting that women seem to gravitate to this sort of thing and be really, really good at it, while the suits stand there with hands folded and stupid looks on their mugs?
Third: Agree on a strategy and stick with it. Preferrably not the same lies and conflicting stories that even the corporate suck up professionals at Fox News ain’t buying. Your Board needs to quit micro-managing and let that suggested single spokesperson do their job within the fancy JIC.
Hey, BP … I’m available. I’m not cheap, but I’m good at trench/field Crisis PR, and did I say … available?
Here’s my point: BP has a truly lovely, enormously impressive crisis website, it’s a freaking techno wonderland, with more bells and whistles than any hundred PIO’s could jump over. What they lack is a human rather than corporate face. All that fancy website does is confirm the public perception that they are a giant, souless, faceless and uncaring corporation.
Not exactly what they need to be aiming for just now.
