Video Clip of the Month: BP Commercial Spoofs

British Petroleum’s (BP’s) failure to adequately enlist social media in the communications battle over the BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill made picking a single video clip of the month too difficult. So I’ve chosen two BP commercial spoofs, both highlighting BP’s growing credibility gap as it desperately tries to control information and ignores the new (social media era) communication rules: collaboration, openness, transparency, and timeliness.

While BP is on Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, and YouTube, the information and images it’s sharing are either out-of-date and wrong or way too obviously sanitized.  As Glen Gilmore wrote in an excellent blog post on BP and the social media battleground:

Looking at the collection of photos uploaded at the bpAmerica Flickr stream, one might think that BP’s work crews had been sent to the wrong beaches and waters, as the ones shown in their photographs have shining white sand and clear waters…. Nicely-polished productions and squeeky-clean images are precisely the sort of content that makes board members smile – and the rest of the public go elsewhere for their information.

In this case, the public has turned to satirical YouTube videos, such as a Lady Gaga BP gingle and my below two picks for video clip of the month; a BOYCOTTbp Facebook fan page; and a fake Twitter account. @BPGlobalPR pokes fun at the real oil giant’s public relations campaign with tweets such as:

• We are very upset that Operation: Top Kill has failed. We are running out of cool names for these things.
• If we’re being accused of being criminals, we want to be tried by a jury of our peers- wealthy execs who don’t give a damn. #fairisfair
• A bird just stole my sandwich! You deserve everything you get, nature!!! #bpcares
• I’m sorry, are people mad at us for drilling in the ocean?!? Maybe God shouldn’t have put oil there in the first place. DUH. #bpcares
• BP: Cross you fingers and pray for our riskiest operation yet. We sent Terry to get the lunch order.

Apparently, BP’s communications strategies aren’t going to leave the 1980s anytime soon. BP just hired Anne Womack Kolton, a former spokeswoman for Vice President Dick Cheney, to be its public face for the disaster. While at Cheney’s side, Kolton was an ardent defender of secrecy, and she comes from the Brunswick Group, the international communications and crisis management firm running BP’s failed public relations response. While I could be surprised, I suspect this “change” will only lead to more of the same. It’ll be interesting to watch and find out.

I’m so glad I sold all my BP stock earlier this year! Enjoy the videos.

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