BP’s Aggressive PR Plan Revealed, Piss Everyone Off

As Gulf oil spill disaster is not bad enough, now BP boss Tony Hayward tells the world to piss off.  BP’s new “offensive PR” plan must be to deal from a position of strength, eh? Watching BP stumble and fumble around would be comedic except for their incompetence. “A drop in the ocean” Hayward says. Read on for an alternative reality.

Update: A conversation with Marketplace Senior Business Correspondent Bob Moon reveals BP’s apparent acquiescence to their lawyers. See American Public Media radio report below.

Exxon Valdez spilled roughly 250,000 barrels of crude off Prince William Sound in 1989. What does the math tell you if the Purdue numbers are correct? What is BP cannot stop the leak any better than shutting their pie hole?

Mississippi River current meets BP’s “drop in the ocean”

On Monday it was discovered BP hired PR giant Brunswick to help deal with the public relations end of this mess, and now we see what they termed “aggressive PR” means.  It looks like BP and Brunswick are about to claim the stupidity defense. Or perhaps the arrogance one.

U.S. Representative Edward Markey suggests that original estimates on this leak may be way off. Originally, Energy Secretary Steven Chu relied upon estimates provided by NOAA and BP to determine how much oil is contaminating the Gulf, but National Public Radio has reported on a Purdue University independent study that suggests 14 times that amount.

The disaster in pictures from Boston.com also negates the US Coast Guard’s suggesting there is no immediate danger to the Gulf coast. Let’s just hope when all is said and done, people remember whose faces to put egg on.

Maybe Hayward’s remarks are no worse than Brunswick Group CEO Alan Parker’s (upper left, in defensive posture on the beach) on their website? In a note for the second edition of the Brunswick Review Parker speaks Big Chief talk describing that firm’s “digital media” strategy:

But social media is so new for most companies that it can be hard to hire enough digital natives to stay abreast of the digital revolution, let alone get ahead of it.

Well, if BP’s and Brunswick’s rhetoric and “war path” (aggressive in native social media speak) strategies are to work, they had better get busy employing more braves for their “chiefs” to order around – lest the whole “tribe” of digital injuns pee pee’s on their parade.

Digital natives? Was BP around when the buffalo disappeared? I can hear Hayward now; “There are plenty more animals out there.” BP’s efforts so far spell failure at every turn.

Dolphins under oil. Do they enjoy sucking crude when they breathe?

Oil spill images courtesy Boston.com