The BP Brand One Year LaterBranding lessons from the disaster

Interbrand | Pg. 2

The BP Brand One Year Later:Branding lessons from the disaster

On April 20, 2010 the world first became aware of the Deepwater Horizon disaster and the brand of BP began to endure one of the most sustained and uncompromising attacks on a corporate reputation that’s ever been witnessed. Now, a year has passed. So how has the brand fared and what lessons can be learned?Still strugglingWhen brands encounter disasters, the basic principles of recovery are to acknowledge the error, take remedial action, and then let everyone know of the remedial action until the time when it is clear that the brand’s reputation is recovering. BP is still going through this process.

Recent communications are still dominated with sincere “mea culpa” acknowledgements of the disaster, and if BP is following the formula, the actions that it is currently taking indicate that the BP brand is a ways off from any sense of recovery.

This would broadly be in line with the principle that the damage to the brand would be proportional to the scale of the disaster. Clearly the Gulf of Mexico and the ecology, people and economies of Florida coasts are far from recuperation,.

Within this context the BP brand has dropped off Interbrand’s list of the Best Global Brands, and it’s difficult to anticipate its return. BP may even have managed to increase the passive role brand plays in consumers’ purchase process when it comes to petrol retailing.

BP’s impact on the role of brand in the petrol industryThe role of brand is a measure used to understand the impact of the brand in driving demand within a category. Up until the disaster, convenience of location was

the dominant driver for petrol retailers. The BP disaster changed all that with U.S. consumers actually going out of their way to avoid their local BP gas station.

So while BP may remain relatively insulated from permanent damage to its commercial operations due to the world’s oil consumption, the brand remains in purgatory in the minds’ of consumers. Additionally, the effect of the disaster on employee morale must be considerable.

The BP oil spill’s impact on internal brand engagementWe know people want to feel good about the companies they work for and the disaster must have shaken employees to the core. While the vast majority of employees aren’t responsible for the disaster, it would still be understandable if they feel a sense of guilt by association or dissatisfaction with how their employee managed its crisis communications. BP’s position within recruitment markets has been equally shattered and BP will need all

by Graham Hales

The BP Brand One Year Later: Branding Lessons from the Disaster Interbrand | Pg. 3

the talent and determination it can muster to turn things around with any degree of confidence or conviction.

The BP oil spill and media lessonsFormer CEO Tony Hayward’s leadership of the company was understandably made untenable by the disaster. Indeed, because the personification of the ultimate responsibility rested with him, many other CEO’s have since reached out for extra media training after bearing witness to his difficulties in front of the glare of 24-hour media’s voracious appetite. Hayward may have wanted to demonstrate a natural persona, but his comments and actions didn’t translate into the foreign cultures of global media. Certainly he couldn’t begin to compensate for the loss of lives, images of oil gushing from the stricken pipe, haunting pictures of wildlife drowning in oil, and the broken businesses of Florida.

The BP oil spill and greenwashingAdditionally, BP was one of the first brands to truly encounter the wrath of social media as the public found the opportunity to proclaim their abhorrence. The brand that had claimed it wanted to be “Beyond Petroleum” seemed at best guilty of communicating an empty promise.

Even a year after BP educated brand managers in this mistake, however, many other brands are still deluding themselves that they have partial responsibility for the delivery of their marketing messages. They are falsely telling themselves that it is acceptable for the inside world of a company to have a limited relation to the way it wants to be seen by its customers. In the age of Wikileaks and YouTube disgruntled

employees, it is easy for customers to maximize their frustrations. These days the company’s responsibilities extend into with whom they choose to do business with, and who’s in their supply chain. The age of information comfortably exposes any discomfort in the journeys that goods and services take to their markets.

So as we continue to reflect on the Deepwater oil spill a year on, it is clear that people are feeling aggrieved at BP. At the same time, BP still acknowledges its culpability. Hopefully, it will also take the lessons from the disaster to learn how to improve its business and its relationship with its customers and its brand. ■

These days the company’s responsibilities extend into with whom they choose to do business with, and who’s in their supply chain.

Creating and managing brand valueTMinterbrand.com

Graham Hales

Graham Hales is Interbrand London’s Managing Director. His work has taken him across a diverse range of business agendas, geographies, and cultures in consulting for some of Interbrand’s most high profile clients and the Interbrand brand.