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BP Buys "Oil Spill" Search Term
technology_dude found an unsurprising but amusing little story that BP is buying keywords on Google and Yahoo for things like "Oil Spill" to help spin some damage control. I guess if you can't plug your spill, the least you can do is try to clog the flow of information.
If i google "oil spill" here (Netherlands) it does not show sponsered links.
I'd have expected less of them... But I guess they're doing pretty well so far with their coverage on bp.com and using dispersants to keep most of the spill at depth and keeping away science vessels so they're free to misunderestimate the true magnitude.
Wonder what their PR budget is compared to their recovery budget.
but this really isn't news. Money has a voice. More money has a louder voice. Lots of money can shout out all other voices.
I hope the search providers enjoy their windfall. I hope the states, the Feds, and the individual victims of this disaster take careful note of how much money is being spent on non-productive spin control, rather than actually fixing the problem and cleaning up the aftermath.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
This is a pretty ignorant, if rhetorical, question. Along the lines of asking what good replacing a 100w incandescent light bulb with a 23w CFL is in the grand scheme of things. The answer? The single light bulb and the single PR marketing action make virtually no impact. Are they pointless?
BP obviously wants to continue operating and overcome this disaster. Regardless of what other actions they take, do you think that is possible WITHOUT trying to boost their image through PR?
Whale
Yes. It worked, for the most part, for Exxon and Union Carbide. They'll, probably, just try to play by the play-book those two companies used. History shows that the public has a short memory/attention span.
Rules of Conduct:
#1 - The DM is always right.
#2 - If the DM is wrong, see rule #1
Hell yeah!
One is to:
www.BP.com/OilSpillNews "Info about the Gulf of Mexico Spill Learn More about How BP is Helping."
The other is:
Tar Ball Burner(tm) "Collect free tar balls from beaches and turn them into unleaded gas!"
Please slashdot both of them.
"His name was James Damore."
Wait till they declare a profit this quarter. The whole country will draw and quarter them.
What can I do?
Go to google, search for 'oil spill', and click on all the ads. Each click costs them money, and I'm sure they're bidding high for placement.
But I guess they're doing pretty well so far with their coverage on bp.com and using dispersants to keep most of the spill at depth and keeping away science vessels so they're free to misunderestimate the true magnitude.
Science vessels? According to Newsweek, it's photographers and people looking to document the damage that BP is turning away. Now that's some unadulterated bullshit "damage control."
I heard on NPR that some people looking to investigate beaches were turned away by policeman and when they asked the policemen who was paying them to do that the policeman said they were off duty police officers employed by BP. I don't know if that's true or if the people are lying but the stinks worse than crude if it's the truth and I hope the US AG criminal investigation gets to the bottom of that.
My work here is dung.
Good question. I mean, I hear that the janitors are still cleaning the toilets in BP headquarters! Where are their priorities?!
Seriously, they're a big company, they can focus on more than one thing at a time... It's like the Mythical Man-Month -- Just throwing resources at the problem isn't necessarily going to make it better, and could well make it worse.
You do realise that they've bought an ad space, they're not paying to bury all the other organic search results. It's one ad that appears in the clearly marked sponsored area and links to a page that gives some information about how they're trying (and failing) to do anything, with some webcams and a pitiful "have you got any ideas to help?" request. It's hardly preventing people finding the information they want, any more than Dulux are trying to destroy our cultural heritage by preventing us accessing information on the great artists because they show an ad when I search for "painting".
While it may be good PR for them to have what they have on the Oil Spill link, it actually IS a very helpful link versus the rest of the results. Have you actually looked at what they have on that page? While the highlighted area is basically to let people know what they are doing, there is a bunch of very useful information and links also on that page. Important phone numbers, links to the four State response websites, ROV footage...stuff that they don't HAVE to put on a "Damage Control" link. They may only have done it because that was the only way to have any hope of repairing their image once this is over, but it's a better source of information that most of the other links you'll find in the results. AND it's in the sponsored link section, clearly pointing out that it's not just a run of the mill search result.
How exactly can the PR and marketing department assist a mile underwater?
use their bodies to plug up the well?
Honestly it's the best use for marketing and PR people....
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
So BP is spending their money on ads for a relevant search term and when you click on the ad you are lead to information on what they are doing with the oil spill. And we're supposed to be angry at them for doing this? Huh? Maybe their info is bogus or they should be providing more info. Maybe they have totally botched the oil spill. But it would make more sense to me if people were outraged if they DIDN'T buy ads that lead people to information.
If by "real news" you mean "more media hype" then yes. We get it - the oil spill is an environmental disaster. It's bad for BP, it's really bad for fisherman in the Gulf, and it's generally bad for the economy in all the Gulf states, and it's definitely bad for the marine ecosystem.
BP has already suffered a near crippling blow. They have lost *100 billion* dollars in market cap. The CEO is going to be toast along with quite a few other people as soon as they have the situation calmed down - the board just doesn't want to toast him until things quiet down a bit. The other companies involved, Transocean, Andarko, etc. have suffered proportionally similar blows, accounting for 10s of billions of dollars in additional market cap wiped out.
And the sad thing is that the "punish BP" bloodlust is just going to result in thousands of decent Americans who work in the energy industry losing jobs in the inevitable restructurings that will come, and those jobs will end up going elsewhere, since we still will be consuming the oil here.
The only worse penalty BP as a corporate organization could pay at this point is a firesale takeover (because their successor will have to eat the huge contingent liability here). If somebody or somebodies at BP were negligent or actively broke safety regulations, then by all means, they should be criminally prosecuted for their actions. Top execs will already pay the price when they get the boot from their cushy jobs for the poor oversight they have exercised. If they did something criminal, they should be prosecuted too.
But this ... obsession ... with personalizing "BP" as some sort of entity that has committed an evil act that we can "punish" in any way further than has already been done is baffling to me. People - it's *been* punished. There are a bunch of marketing and PR weenies on staff at BP and they are just trying to do their jobs here. There's nothing wrong with them promoting the site they put up as a source of information for the public about the oil spill.
What's more, at this point, more economic damage is actually being done by media hype than by oil itself. The damage to the Florida tourism industry isn't being caused by a few tar balls that washed up, it's being caused by panicked morons canceling their vacations because of what they saw on the news. While I'm all for BP and friends covering the costs of actual damage from their oil spill, I don't think it's reasonable to hold anybody other than the media accountable for the damage from their hype machine, and I can't blame BP's PR people for trying to do what they can to get their side of the story out there (as long as they aren't simply lying about it).
BP has already suffered a near crippling blow. They have lost *100 billion* dollars in market cap. ... 10s of billions of dollars in additional market cap wiped out.
Oh noes, not market cap! That's the thing about market cap -- it can be wiped out instantly, but it can come back too, and the only people who lose anything are the ones who sold while it was down. If BP was planning on buying out a smaller oil company using shares of their stock, well, now would be a bad time to do that. Oh noes!
In the meantime, BP continues to make real profits to the tune of tens of millions per day.
I'm not saying it's not a blow, but it's hardly crippling. Companies can continue to operate and make substantial profits even after tremendous stock price drops. And if BP does continue to make money, then their stock price will recover.
And the sad thing is that the "punish BP" bloodlust is just going to result in thousands of decent Americans who work in the energy industry losing jobs in the inevitable restructurings that will come, and those jobs will end up going elsewhere, since we still will be consuming the oil here.
It's an odd mentality, where the cause-and-effect here wouldn't be the obvious "Executive negligence in their company losing many jobs", but rather "the public caring that the executives cut corners and ignored signs because it would cost time and thus money resulted in this disaster, and subsequent job loss".
Yes, obviously the solution is that we should not care!
No. If people attributed cause and effect correctly, maybe we'd get some real change around here.
Top execs will already pay the price when they get the boot from their cushy jobs for the poor oversight they have exercised. If they did something criminal, they should be prosecuted too.
Oh noes they'll be fired from their cushy jobs! They might have to lay low living off their scant millions for a while before getting a cushy VP job somewhere else because the last thing the incestuous network of corporate executives and board members want is to raise standards.
Nothing short of criminal prosecution will be any kind of real punishment. I'm not holding my breath on the end result, but at least one thing is going right.
But this ... obsession ... with personalizing "BP" as some sort of entity that has committed an evil act that we can "punish" in any way further than has already been done is baffling to me. People - it's *been* punished.
Yeah, by only making half as much net profit -- estimates of BP's efforts at cleanup and stopping the leak per day are about half of their net profit per day.
Oh, the punishment! Their Q2 and Q3 earnings statements will be less glowing! They may be penalized in the market, until the expected profits return! Please. Call me when they go into the red, even for a single quarter.
By the way, the obsession with personalizing a corporation as some sort of entity unto itself has been the obsession of the corporate executives since early last century. Is it any wonder that we have bought into the delusion that "BP" can do anything on its own? "Corporate personhood" is their baby.
If you want to end that delusion, I'm all for it. But realize that the executives themselves are on the other side of this one from you, as is for that matter the law.
The enemies of Democracy are