In five years time, business schools around the world will be treating the BP disaster as a text book example of how not to handle a crisis.
Associated Press lists the gaffes starting with BP CEO Tony Hayward telling reporters "I'd like my life back" Other mistakes include the company quibbling about whether there were undersea plumes of oil, downplaying any prospect of massive damage early in the crisis and making far-too-optimistic predictions for when the spill could be stopped.
According to Associated Press, BP violated its own spill plan filed with the US Government declaring that "No statement shall be made containing any of the following: promises that property, ecology or anything else will be restored to normal." Since then, it has put on a TV ad with Hayward pledging to "make this right". President Obama has told the company it should spend the money instead for the cleanup and compensating devastated fisherman and small business owners.
The spoof tweets from BP Global PR, which are hilarious to read, have not helped. Tweets like "Catastrophe is a strong word, let's all agree to call it a whoopsie daisy", "People say our stock has plummeted because of the spill. False. It's because that commie Obama hates the middle class. ^Tony" and "We feel terrible about spilling oil in American waters, we'll make sure the next spill happens where the terrorists live" are just gold. The prankster behind this fake Twitter site is providing a great service.
Of course, there's only so much you can do with crisis management. The best answer for BP would be to just fix the hole.
But then, BP is making it worse with Reuters reporting that the company has bought terms like "oil spill" from search engines like Google to direct Internet users to its website. Again, that money would have been better spent fixing the problem and compensating communities and businesses for the damage. If you go to the BP website you will find pretty pictures, a feel good video from Hayward but no pics or extensive detail about the damage that's been done.
The first rule in crisis management is transparency. BP has shown none of that.
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