BP: Good PR Battling Bad PR From Within

Most of the time, when PR practitioners are crafting crisis communications plans, they are imagining scenarios when something has gone terribly wrong and the company is going to have to battle an onslaught of negative publicity, generated by people outside the firm. Their key strategies include setting the record straight – making sure the facts are accurately reported – and reassuring the public that they are doing everything possible to effectively address the crisis at hand.

In that context, the public relations department at BP has done an outstanding job responding to the crisis created by the explosion and subsequent oil spill from its deepwater drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico. They have opened their doors to the press, providing them with details on the spill and containment efforts, and have run full-page ads assuring the public that the company was doing whatever it took to solve the problem and would pay for all of the damage to the region. They have even gone as far as making public a live video feed of the well, even as oil gushes out of it into the ocean waters, in order to create a sense of transparency.

The problem with BP’s public relations efforts, which have spurned almost as much news as the crisis itself, is that internally, it seems that the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing. Invariably, just as the PR department’s carefully crafted ads show up in the daily newspapers of the affected Gulf Coast communities, BP executives are making comments about wanting to get on with their lives and about the “small people” whose livelihoods have been stripped by this situation. While the PR department is doing whatever it can to publicize BP’s containment and cleanup efforts, the company’s CEO is watching his yacht race off the coast of England. Whatever goodwill the PR department is trying to generate with the media and the public at large, is being drowned out by negative publicity created by its executives’ blunders.

The BP public relations fiasco underscores two important components to any public relations program. First is the issue of training. Just because an executive is good at running a profitable company, that does not mean he will automatically make a great spokesperson for the firm. Clearly, BP CEO Tony Hayward was not adequately trained by the PR department. Otherwise, he would have known better than to say something as stupid as he did about wanting the crisis to be over so that he could “get his life back”, right in the middle of a situation that had left 11 dead and countless others grieving the loss of their livelihoods as the oil contamination wiped out businesses across the Gulf Coast. He would have also known that taking the time out to make a personal visit (with photos) to the affected region would have made a positive PR impact, while taking time out on his yacht during the crisis would (and did) have a significantly negative impact.

The other component to a good PR program that has been executed poorly by BP is consistency. So many firms don’t want to take the time and effort necessary to ensure consistency across all of their communications channels – from the board of directors, across their marketing vehicles, down to individual sales people – and yet, it clearly makes a difference. The lack of consistency in BP’s messaging has cost the company a huge amount of credibility, in a time when credibility was crucial. The result? An erosion of public trust…and the loss of billions of dollars in market valuation, seriously affecting the portfolios and pensions of BP employees and stockholders alike.

Just as the Deepwater Horizon should serve as a lesson in disaster recovery and preparedness, so BP’s public perception crisis should serve as an important lesson in PR and corporate communications. It is not enough to have a plan in place. Consistency must be maintained throughout an organization’s communications venues, and one of the ways to do that is to make sure it starts at the top, with a well-trained executive.

To learn more about how we can help you maintain more consistency in your PR and marketing communications programs, call 832-372-4798 or visit http://www.lindawisepr.com/.

Better Late Than Unprepared

The Cy-Fair Chamber of Commerce honored Linda Wise PR & Marketing with a ribbon cutting Thursday. It was nice to be recognized as a new business in the community, although it felt a bit strange, given the fact that I moved my office to the area and joined the Chamber six months ago! In contrast, the other business doing their ribbon cutting at the same time had opened their doors just a week beforehand.

So why in the world would a business wait to promote its business instead of just jumping right out there? It seems like an odd thing to do, especially given that I spend my life encouraging people to "get out there" with their message!

Actually, the reason why I waited to promote Linda Wise PR is the same reason I encourage many of my clients to wait to promote their businesses. I needed to take the time to do it right. How many businesses just throw themselves into the market, hoping to make sales, only to have to backtrack later because they haven't taken the time to plan their launch? Their collateral is incomplete and often looks somewhat unprofessional, their messages are inconsistent and not necessarily in line with their target audience's hot buttons, and there's no strategy on how to go to market with their product or service offering, so it's easy for sales and marketing and engineering to be going in three different directions.

There is certainly nothing wrong with a business "testing the waters" before it goes into full-blown launch mode. In the software business, this is called a "soft launch", wherein a product is introduced to a select number of customers to see what the market reaction is (on a limited scale) before a larger investment is made in a full sales and marketing effort. Usually, however, even before the soft launch, there has been some market research and beta testing of the product/service, key messages have been crafted, and a go-to-market plan has been developed. The soft launch stage is really designed for any bugs to be worked out of the product, or tweaks to be made in the sales and marketing side of the house.

Once a decision has been made to fully launch a product, service, or business into the market, there are a few key marketing elements that should be in place prior to the launch:

• Go-to-market strategy - who needs what you're offering, why do they need it, what differentiates you from others with similar offerings, how will you deliver it, and what will be the pricing, packaging, and promotion methods used?


• Launch plan - What is the timing for taking your offering to market? What specific methodologies will be used to introduce it to the market? A solid launch plan covers more than just marketing, but also incorporates sales and customer service. Public relations - including communication to employees, shareholders and the media - is usually a key component as well.


• Key messages - It is critical to communicate the value of your offering, and the best way to do this is to define the exact points you want to get across, so that they can be applied across all of your touchpoints with customers.


• Professional sales materials - Knowledge may be power, but image can have a serious impact on your business. The more professional your sales and marketing materials look, the more seriously you will be taken with your offering. And it's not just about graphics...those key messages need to be incorporated consistently in all of your materials, and the writing should communicate to the audience your pieces are designed to reach. A technical brochure will not "sell" a CEO on your product! Likewise, a business-oriented article will not hit home with your end-user decision maker as well as a "how-to" video or technical white paper.

In my 10+ years as a marketing and PR consultant, I have found that clients who will take the time to put in place the foundation they need for a solid communications program prior to launching a new product or service (or announcing a new business formed by a merger or acquisition) are the ones who have seen the greatest success in the market. By taking the time to do it right, they do it well...and reap the rewards accordingly.

If you need help in preparing for a product, service, or business launch, feel free to contact me at 832-372-4798 for a free initial consultation. A detailed list of services can be found at www.lindawisepr.com.