Week 12 Blog Post

The BP Oil spill in 2010 was a disgrace. There is no other way to put it. When we first learned about the leak, we were informed it was under control and everything was going to be fixed soon. As the weeks went on, the public discovered that BP was not as truthful as they claimed to be. There were no back-up plans for spills or damage to the equipment and they were still trying to figure something out. While the world thought everything was under control, things were getting farther and farther out of hand.

If I were a PR executive, I would have probably come right out and said what was going on. I would have admitted the mistakes the company had made concerning plans and maintenance. I would have been honest. That may not have helped their image in the beginning, but in the long run, they could not have been accused of lying to the public. Instead going back and forth with answers and contradicting themselves, I would have at least kept the same story from start to finish.

To help better the image of the BP Oil Company, I might have tried to focus the attention on what the company was doing for the families of the people who had died in the accident. The media seemed to focus on the survivors and, in my opinion, that undermined the deaths. Other than that idea, I’m not sure how much “face” could have been saved for the BP Oil Company