When BP was gearing up to announce one of the biggest quarterly losses in corporate history, some attention was no doubt given to the question of how to move the news on. Losses on this scale were never going to be buried completely, but to put some other news alongside them was, no doubt, a key part of the strategy.
So, alongside the announcement of the losses came the much anticipated news that CEO, Tony Hayward, was leaving by 'mutual agreement'. Plans for asset sales that would allow the business to handle its, still uncertain, liabilities from the Deepwater Horizon were also announced. As a staunch critic of BP's PR so far, I have to concede that this was done rather well.
The problem, of course, was Greenpeace. The environmental group wanted to share the story, and has done so rather effectively. They shut down BP service stations right across London. In part they did it by tripping, and then taking, the forecourt safety switches. But this is Greenpeace, so they wanted some visuals too. Typically, this was the cleverest part of their campaign, as they hung signs on the forecourts declaring 'Closed: Moving Beyond Petroleum'.
Copyright (c) Combermorel/Greenpeace
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