BP – Can You Hear Me Now?

Tony Shelton, President of Shelton and Caudle Communication Training and Crisis Counsel (a division of Vollmer), was in public relations at Exxon in 1989 at the time of the Valdez oil spill. Also, following the BP Refinery explosion outside Houston in 2005, Shelton provided communication counsel to the contracted engineering firm that lost 13 of the 15 people who died in that event.

In observing the news reports of the BP incident in the Gulf, I was reminded that a policy of alternately hiding and attacking rarely works over the long haul.

• Hiding - I was a low-level PR professional with Exxon at the time of the Valdez spill and was amazed there were so few references to BP in connection with the Transocean rig incident and ongoing release of oil. Certainly, nobody in the media seemed to be blaming BP.  Stories focused on Transocean and BP seemed to be content to stay in the background.  As the Coast Guard had the final say about the clean-up, it was understandable BP might hope that approach would work.  Still it was BP's oil and there had to be a day of reckoning.   Why weren't they more visible and forthcoming at the beginning?
•  Attacking - On May 6th, BP Chief Executive Tony Hayward was quoted by NPR as having said, the spill is "not our accident.  This is a piece of equipment owned and operated by Transocean, maintained by Transocean; they are absolutely accountable for its safety and reliability."  This is a statement better saved for the courts. The public, investors, and the government are not interested.  It's BP's well.  All we want to hear is what they're doing to clean up the oil.  Besides, if you hired a contractor to do work for you, you're responsible for making sure that contractor does things right.  What about oversight?
• Taking responsibility - BP has accepted responsibility for the clean-up, the right thing to do. Companies don't have to admit fault in order to do that. Following the Valdez spill, then Exxon CEO Lawrence Rawl, certainly nobody's media darling, said:
• This was an accident.
• We've accepted responsibility for it, and;
• We're going to clean it up.
• Tony Hayward should stick to just that sequence going forward, with frequent updates about progress.  No more finger pointing or excuses.
•  Also, BP should consider telling us, in the wake of this event, that they're double checking any other rigs, on shore and off.  That would be helpful from both a business and PR perspective.  Fair or not, BP has gotten the reputation of putting profits above safety.  That means the company has to work doubly hard to do the right thing now as another drilling incident would be unconscionable. 

Shelton and Caudle is the Communication Training and Crisis Counsel division of Vollmer Public Relations.  For more information, visit www.sheltoncaudle.com or email Tony at Shelton@vollmerpr.com.