BP Gets Aggressive

Google users looking for the latest news on the estimated 25,000 to 40,000 barrels of oil a day gushing into the Gulf of Mexico will find, at the top of their search results, an ad from BP linking users to a microsite. The site explains BP's efforts to clean up the oil spill caused by an explosion on a drilling rig May 19. Those same users watching a video on YouTube would find a similar ad. Ditto for Facebook.The company is taking an aggressive approach to getting its message online. Its strategy includes popular Internet destination ad buys and a social media effort implemented with the help of the PR arm of lead agency Ogilvy & Mather.The Gulf of Mexico Response hub that BP set up would make most social media strategists proud. It's fed with information broadcast through Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Flickr. BP's Facebook page is also being used as a news distribution hub. Last week, it updated twice a day the real-time results of the amount of oil collected. BP also posted a video there discussing the health dangers posed to cleanup workers and another of congressional hearings on the spill.The early results of the marketing offensive are unclear. Analysts are divided, saying BP risked backlash for the unseemly appearance of pouring money into ad buys at a time oil continues to spill into the gulf."The advertising could be perceived as very wasteful. [But] it's not like you can reorient your marketing department to clean up beaches," said Sarah Hofstetter, svp, emerging media and brand strategy at 360i. "I think they're doing a good job. There's news that's not getting covered by the media that could be valuable to consumers if they knew it."Ogilvy declined to discuss its work on the BP account.A BP spokesperson said of the outreach on social venues: "It's an additional communication tool [along with] the regular media. They appeal to a slightly different audience. They're more direct than other channels."BP is no Ashton Kutcher in terms of its social media savvy. On Facebook, BP America, which employs nearly 100,000 people, has a meager 25,000 fans. Its footprint on Twitter is just 14,800 followers. The company, in a bizarre move, has even been soliciting friends in YouTube overlay ads."It's a little ironic that marketers who have long practiced the 'fish where the fish are' reach-based awareness play cannot make the natural evolution and leap to where their consumers are, where conversation takes place and where both have critical mass," said Joseph Jaffe, chief interrupter at Powered.Social media has become a critical tool in the corporate crisis playbook. Domino's sought to defuse anger over a video of employees tainting pizza with a YouTube video featuring Domino's USA president Patrick Doyle apologizing. And Toyota hosted a live chat with U.S. president Jim Lentz on social news site Digg. Competitors were buying recall-related keywords, said Daina Middleton, president of Performics, the digital shop working with the company. "We were hourly trying to produce the right information," she said.The oil spill, of course, is of an entirely different magnitude and will likely continue as a top story throughout the summer. BP's stock has lost 45 percent of its value, which makes a long-term communications strategy even more important.One thing BP isn't really sharing is feedback. It turned off comments on its YouTube channel. Its Facebook page is open to comments of those that "like" BP America, and has an extensive commenting policy that warns any "ad hominem attacks" will be removed. While the page still contains criticisms, there are also some supporters."If BP is going to come out the back end of what's on its way to being the worse environmental disaster in history, [it's] going to have to be part of the dialog in social media," said Augie Ray, an analyst with Forrester Research. "The challenge is what happens in the real world is reflected in social media."While BP has caught flak for airing a TV campaign featuring BP CEO Tony Hayward and running ads in The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, its more targeted Internet ad efforts -- bidding on search terms such as "BP," "oil leak" and "oil spill," ads that also turn up on YouTube -- have received somewhat less of a backlash. A Google spokesman compared them to those run through its AdWords system by political candidates and advocacy groups. "BP has the same access to these platforms as every other advertiser," he said.Still, the soundness of that strategy is in question. As the creator of the satirical @BPGlobalPR Twitter account put it in a blog post: "If you're a company or if you're trying to advertise something, you can't make people follow you. This isn't the TV, where we force people to sit and listen to your crap during a Real Terrible Housewives show commercial break."On absorbing criticism in social media, the BP rep said: "A lot of people are angry, just as we are. It's all the more reason to keep going and keep telling people what we're doing."See also: "BP's 'Apology' Ad Not a Complete Disaster"

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BP Gets Aggressive

Brian Morrissey

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