In Defense of Public Relations

BP Cares Shirts for Charity

The BP oil spill disaster is the worst in the history of the planet. This made me wonder what BP PR executives are doing because they have been incompetent in communicating what’s going on. They’ve been outright withholding information in some instances and lying to the public about their efforts. Their thumbs are simply up plugging a different hole, it seems.

So I imagined myself as a fly on the wall at BP’s crisis communications meetings (if they’re even having them).  Here’s my fly on the wall take on the way BP’s PR wants to spin this oil disaster (as tweeted):

1. At least when you swim in the beach, you no longer have to oil yourself.

2. No need to use oil when frying fish.

3. Oil spill aside, what we’ve done here is accelerate by decades for planet to go green.

4. When we came up with “Top Kill,” what we meant was top execs not hole.

5. The success of “top kill” is a buzzkill on PR. We’re getting so much publicity right now.

6. Let’s hold an outdoor showing of Armageddon for the fishermen.

7. Finally, we’ve proven that oil & water don’t mix.

8.  Unlike toyota, we’re only killing fish, wildlife & jobs.

9.  Let’s issue a press release that we broke the world record on oil spill disasters.

10. Give us time. We’ll invent a car that runs on ocean-oil water.

I could go on and on here making fun of BP’s disastrous PR response, but it’s time to hear from you PR folks on your Fly On The Wall take on BP’s PR response.

Have a safe Memorial Day weekend.