BP’s PR Machine

A couple of days ago, the CEO of BP quit because of some personal information that got out and the press started rambling on and on about it, possibly having an impact on some of BP’s stakeholders; so he decided the best thing to do was to quit the job as to not further affect the brand.

Two main issues that I see here:

#1 – Private information invasion.  I don’t consider that this was the right thing to do by whoever released the information to the press. He being gay isn’t really much news, as long as he isn’t affecting the company because of it. This should’ve stayed out of the press, either from the releasing party, or the press-they should have not put this into print/air.

#2 – When does a personal scandal affects a brand?  In reality, as we’ve seen countless times before (especially with celebrities) it does have a huge impact, and in many cases can destroy both the persons and the brands reputation. And I’m sure it will do so as well in this particular BP case. However, this scandal has resurfaced many-many previous problems and somewhat negative news that BP had encountered last year.

Although they have been pulling off some nice, creative ads for the brand during the past year or so, this hasn’t been enough to offset all the negative and pejorative comments many business people and press members have done. This is a particular case where the PR people of the brand failed to do their job. I’m not saying they could have avoided this (after all, he is gay, and that’s his business), but they could’ve handled it a lot better.

It is actually a shame when a brand that is offering some different products, some which are much more efficient and have less negative impact on environment can’t make it to the top because of private personal issues that should have been managed just like that: privately.