Tony Hayward, CEO of BP, is having a bad month.
I’m not just talking about the oil spill that’s now washing up nasty petrol onto the Louisiana coastline. The real crisis is how the public is responding to the BP response to this ecological disaster — with sound and fury.
But can you blame them?
Empathy to Entitlement
Things didn’t start off so bad — oil spill aside. Hayward is quoted as saying, “We are going to defend the beaches” and “We will fix this.” That’s the right note to strike, if you mean it, on social networks and blogs. It’s important to be real with people, because the public responds better to genuine conversation in the wake of scandal than lawyer speak.
Then the lawyers got involved, and someone forgot to ask the PR team to lend a hand.
Here’s some of what Mr. CEO has been quoted saying recently:
- “What the hell have we done to deserve this?” (To fellow executives)
- “Apollo 13 did not stop the space program. The Air France airplane that fell out of the sky off of Brazil did not stop the aviation industry.”
- “Almost nothing has escaped.” (Early in the spill)
- “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.”
So enough kicking a company when they’re down. What could BP be doing better? How should British Petroleum go about building back a small level of trust with the people who buy their gas?
- Appoint a Gulf Oil Spill point person who speaks directly with community members
- Tony — stop speaking in horrible quotes and listen to the people of the Gulf states
- Donate a ton of money to charities — and frame it as your duty, not a display of how awesome you are
- Spend billions creating the next generation of fail safe technology and invite other oil companies to participate for the greater good
Tomorrow I’ll focus on the ROI of social media, with respect to KPI’s, to shine a light on how social media boosts your returns over time — but only if you know how to track intelligently. In the meantime, let’s all pray the Gulf Oil spill sees progress very soon.