Last year I wrote about how green washing was going to be the big issue for the future. And BP is doing a great job of proving this.
As you probably already know, BP is responsible for the biggest environmental disaster in North American history. Their off shore oil rig sprung a leak and now the Gulf of Mexico is nothing more than an 1000 mile wide oil stain. The entire region will be devastated for a generation, and scientists are already saying that entire species may not survive.
But this isn't an environmental blog. If you'd like to learn more about that aspect of this story, you can find some great information here.
The survival story -or extinction story- I'm more interested in is that of BP.
When the Exxon Valdez spill happened in 1989, Exxon didn't collapse. The spill was horrific, it killed thousands of animals and ruined many lives, but the company is still here today and trading pretty well on Wall Street.
No one seriously thought that Exxon would collapse because of their oil spill, yet today, many people suspect that BP may not survive their spill.
The failure of BP has more to do with how it positioned itself in the market place then how it is handling the oil spill.
Let's get something straight: all oil companies are "big and evil". They know they make a product that is environmentally hazardous. They know that it is the source of much economic, political, and military instability across the world. And they know that they are getting countries addicted to a finite resource that will eventually dry out leaving us scrambling for options.
Exxon is a great example of a "big and evil" oil company. They make no bones about it: they are in the oil business to make money. Period.
BP, however, tried a different approach.
Until 2000, BP was known as British Petroleum, when someone decided it would be a brilliant move to rebrand themselves to look more earth friendly, and less imperial.
They undertook a revolutionary rebrand that transformed them from BP: British Petroleum to BP: Beyond Petroleum. It was genius. They had positioned themselves as the anti-oil company: an oil company that hated being an oil company, and was desperately seeking alternatives to their dirty main product. An oil company that wanted to place the planet ahead of the profits.
So when their oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico sprung a leak, it took many ordinary consumers by surprise that the anti-oil company was suddenly acting like their big, evil cousins.
From day one, BP has tried covering up the true volume of the oil being leaked into the waters, and even tried to force the oil rig workers to sign a release form absolving BP of any responsibility.
Never mind the fact that their oh so corporate penny pinching resulted in BP not investing in the very technology needed to have prevented the spill in the first place and to prevent the deaths of the 11 oil rig workers that died in the explosion that started this whole debacle.
BP may fail because -for years- it has been sending out a message and a brand promise that they are now undermining on a minute-by-minute basis. It's a hypocrisy that, in the digital age and the age of YouTube, is being pointed out and hammered home in the bluntest way possible.
BP is a classic example of an epic brand failure. If you break your promise you are doomed to collapse. As it stands, we may be witnessing something that hasn't happened in a generation: the collapse of an oil titan.
So what can you learn from BP? Simple: keep your brand promises and you will keep your business -not matter what the disaster.
Yusuf Gad
President, a5MEDIA inc
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