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Can there be a more damning indictment of BP's handling of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill? At a one-day conference on corporate social responsibility, the audience of top business and advertising figures repeatedly laughed when they were shown Twitter postings by Leroy Stick, the blogger who has mercilessly mocked the energy giant by pretending to be BP's global press office.
The audience laughed again as they were then shown the front page of Advertising Age, the US trade magazine of the ad industry, which reported that BP was complaining about how Stick, a blogger, was distorting the debate.
The company has become a laughing stock, yet this is no joke, as the share price shows.
David Jones, global chief executive of ad agency Havas, who hosted the Who Cares Wins CSR conference in London, believes that the trashing of BP's reputation demonstrates a key truth for business leaders. “If you are not a socially responsible company, you will be punished,” says Jones, who has worked closely with David Cameron and the Tories since 2007.
Jones, whose agency is also behind One Young World, a campaign to encourage young socially responsible leaders, makes a persuasive case. He says consumers are now so savvy that they will not be taken in by superficial brand repositioning or public-relations initiatives. CSR must be fundamental to the business, not just a tactic.
The Gulf of Mexico spill was always going to be a serious crisis for BP, and its response has been poor. But Jones argues: “What has exacerbated the feeling against BP is they so overtly positioned themselves as a nice company. The whole repositioning was a massive over-claim. It was image-changing, rather than changing the business. When you change your logo to a flower, giving the impression you are one of the greenest companies on the planet and then this happens, people will come up and bite you. It's a comeuppance.”
Jones claims, in true adman-speak, that we are entering the third decade of CSR. The 1990s were the age of image when, for example, BP dropped its old name, British Petroleum. The second decade from 2000 to 2010 was the age of advantage, where companies such as Whole Foods made ethical behaviour a point of competitive difference.
The new decade is about the age of damage. In the era of online social media, where the public has so much access to information and can share it and comment on it, consumers punish those businesses that don't live up to expectations. We are all Leroy Sticks now. Companies must demonstrate transparency, authenticity and speed — all qualities that BP has lacked.
“Act before somebody acts on your behalf,” says Jones. “The most successful businesses over the next decade or so are going to be the most socially responsible.”
He cites Wal-Mart as a company that has adapted to this new era, telling consumers not only what its CSR targets are but also explaining where it has failed. And being transparent forces staff to keep asking “is what I am doing in line with the company's values?”, reinforcing behaviour.
Plainly, companies must be profitable as well as socially responsible, but Jones is surely right that CSR is no longer optional. Or as Leroy Stick puts it: “You know the best way to get the public to respect your brand? Have a respectable brand.”
Reader views (3)
By the way, there is a fleet of the world's most advanced oil-skimming spill clean-up vessels sitting idle in the Nederlands. The owners offered assistance to BP and the USA government almost immediately the blow-out happened. Why aren't these ships active in the Gulf? Because USA law prohibits their deployment in USA territorial waters, and the offer of help was rejected by the USA.
The politicians are obstructing the clean-up. Maybe they actually want it to get worse. Do they think being able to bash BP until their mid-term elections will help them get elected, or something like that?
- Nigel, London, 15/06/2010 19:01
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Actually Transocean is a Swiss company (in the same sense as BP is a British one - that's where it's domiciled. Like BP it operates world-wide).
BP may not be entirely blameless. They designed the well, and they had very considerable operational influence over Transocean, Haliburton, etc.
What's sickening is the way that USA politicians are throwing blame around before there has been any opportunity to investigate in detail exactly what went wrong and how. The most importnat thing right now is to stop the leak. The next most important is to find out exactly what happened and learn lessons so it can't happen again. Thanks to the politicians, the latter is probably now impossible.
- Nigel, London, 15/06/2010 18:54
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Why can people not accept that BP only held the licence to drill and was following all (lax) regulations laid down by a US government desperate for home produced oil?
Why can Americans not accept that the rig was run and managed by TransOcean - a U company - and not BP?
Why can Americans not grasp the fact that it was Halliburton (a US company) which was responsible for the concreting and seabed technology that failed.
Oh yeah - BP is majority British.
The US should have the guts to face up to its responsibilities and pay half the clean up costs; the rest can be shared by BP, TransOcean and Halliburton.
The US should also compensate the UK and Europe for the toxic debt there that caused the econmies of the west to implode (onloy Gordon Brown's plan saved us all). It should also pay compensation and clear up all the damage it has done - from Amoco Cadiz in 1978 to Bhopal to Iraq and Afghanistan.
David Cameron should tell Barry Obama to go to hell. Special relationship? Yeah right - like the 'special relationship' of a rapist with his victim. We Brits must have special needs to accept this all American crap. The future of the UK us with Europe not the US - and this proves that the US does not care at all if it destroys our ecomony.
- Eddie, London, UK, 15/06/2010 13:16
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