Bp Oil Disaster Aftermath - Public Relations

Table of Contents

Table of Contents 1

Introduction 2

Crisis Management 3

Engaging the Media 3

BPs Response 4

PR Campaign Effect 4

Media News Cycle 4

Conclusion 5

List of References 6

Introduction

On April 20, 2010, an oil platform exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, killing 11 men and injuring 17 others. The following three months 4.9 million barrels of oil were leaked out into the ocean, greatly damaging the marine habitat, wildlife and the Gulf’s fishing and tourism industry . Due to the amount of oil leaked out into the ocean, this incident was accounted as the largest accidental marine oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry.

After the accident was published across the world media, the BP stock plummeted and lost nearly half of its value. The CEO Tony Hayward was forced to resign, and in addition there was a lot of speculation that the company would be bought out to recover from the crisis .

Figure 1: BP stock drop after the accident, data collected from 01/01-2010 to 01/01-2011.

Luckily for BP, the oil leak was stopped on May 2, 2010. Unfortunately now they were facing an army of reporters demanding answers.

Later in January 2011, nine months after the accident, the White House oil spill commission released its final report regarding the causes of the oil spill. They pointed their fingers toward the multibillion company “BP” and its partners, claiming that the cause of the accident was due to a series of cost cutting decisions and the lack of a system to ensure well safety .

The first three months after the spill, BP spent more than 90 million US dollars on PR while struggling to clear its name and minimizing the damage that was already done. In my assignment I will;

- Study one PR project of your interest and critically appraise the management process involved for the program: starting from how PR problems were defined, how the project go planned and programmed; then how the company/organization took action and communicated with key publics; to the final evaluation of the program.

The main focus in my assignment will be the PR campaign launched shortly after the accident, and I will do an evaluation based on how the campaign affected the company on a short and long term basis.

Crisis Management

The key to crisis management is being prepared , but in BP’s