BP\'s Corporate Image in a Negative Light.

¶ … BP's corporate image in a negative light. The first reason is that it will give the media a negative talking point about the company. The second reason is that it will give an audience to critics of the company's environmental policies. The third reason is that it will raise some of the issues with respect to the North Slope oil business, including the age of the pipelines and the quality of crude. For BP, the company has worked to try to create an image of being environmentally responsible, and events like this contradict those efforts. This would especially be damaging if further investigation by the media were to find that BP was negligent in some way with respect to pipeline maintenance, and was at fault for the spill. There are also potential legal remedies, and the court of public opinion can certainly hold sway over the EPA or other agencies that would be investigating the spill.

There are many stakeholders in this incident. The immediate stakeholders are BP, the environment and any people living in the area. There are a wide range of other stakeholders that need to be taken into consideration, and media involvement in an issue like this will bring the event to the attention of such external stakeholders. These include BP shareholders and senior management, competitors who also have a stake in the North Slope oil business, native and environmental groups, the EPA and other regulators, the media, the general public, Alaskan politicians (most of whom have a stake in decisions regarding oil exploration in the region), and the BP employees affected by the spill. The spill will not affect the price of crude, so the world oil market in general is not going to be a stakeholder here, nor are consumers.

3. BP has some options with respect to public relations. The company should adopt an approach that expresses responsibility. Legally, it might want to avoid culpability, but it should appear that the company is taking responsibility for the situation and is dealing with it. The objective of this approach is to ensure that the dialogue is focused on BP as a source of solutions rather than a source of problems. The spin on this must always remain positive, but if BP does nothing or tries to dodge responsibility the spin will go negative fast because it will provide fuel for the company's longstanding opponents in activist groups and within the media.

The company also needs to control the dialogue as best it can. This means adopting a strategy of providing as much information as possible to the media to discourage speculation. Also, the media like organizations that work with them, so BP should take the view that it is a partner with the media in covering the story, and have its PR people accessible and as open as possible. The PR people may need to be trained by the legal team to ensure that they do not say anything that could expose the company to liability. Also, the PR team must be in charge of all communications. The CEO should not be allowed to do any talking without a PR intermediary. I cannot stress that enough. If the CEO becomes involved, not only could he say things that make the company look bad, but it would also make this issue look like it is big enough for the CEO to be involved -- we want to make the issue look small and that means keeping executives out of it.