April 20th, 2010 marks the largest marine oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry. The catastrophic event, commonly referred to as the British Petroleum (BP) oil spill or Deepwater Horizon oil spill, took place in the Gulf of Mexico and started due to “well integrity failure” on BP’s Deepwater Horizon oilrig. A “blowout preventer,” the device that seals the well in situations such as this, failed to engage. The failure led to hydrocarbons uncontrollably shooting up the well, triggering a chain of explosions. These explosions not only killed 11 BP personnel, but also unleashed over four million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico (Bryant 2011). The leak took three months to stop, despite a variety of attempts, before BP finally capped it off on July 15th, 2010 (Adams and Gabbert 2010). In response to the crisis BP launched a website to present itself and its responses in a positive manner. BP’s “Gulf of Mexico Restoration” website uses these three strategies to try to repair its reputation: BP uses vibrant images of beaches and aquatic habitats to visually demonstrate its progress toward restoring the environment affected by the Deepwater Horizon accident; chronicles its accomplishments of restoring the Gulf of Mexico using sizeable headliners and captions, and provides a timeline of expenditures to display its financial commitment to revamping the damaged region.
BP uses stunning pictures of restored beaches and enhanced aquatic habitats to express its commitment to rectifying all damages the oil spill had on people and their communities. BP scattered pictures of gorgeous shorelines, stunning sea creatures, and appetizing assortments of freshly caught seafood throughout its website to provide visual evidence that BP is, in fact, revamping the Gulf’s natural resources. Based on the pictures, the region now looks suitable for tourism, commercial and recreational fishing, and wildlife. Furthermore, the website incorporates pictures of BP’s staff, in offices and in the Gulf, working to correct and prevent disasters in the future. These vivid images provide documentation of BPs accomplishments and its determination to continuously repair the damages caused by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
Throughout the website, sizeable headers and captions accompany BP’s pictures in order to highlight important views and accomplishments. For example, this bold headline, featured on multiple “Gulf of Mexico Restoration” webpages, verifies that BP’s is devoted to restoring and preserving the Gulf Coast: “Investigations into the Deepwater Horizon accident continue to play an important role in understanding its causes, preventing future accidents, and improving the safety of deep water drilling.” In addition, BP uses these large, powerfully titled, headers and captions to allow users to monitor and understand its mission and determination to restore the Gulf to its natural form. Notably, BP’s strongly titled header, “Restoring the Environment,” introduces readers to the specific topic being discussed. Captions such as, “We are helping economic and environment restoration efforts in the Gulf Coast as part of our ongoing commitment to the region following the Deepwater Horizon accident in 2010,” provide a detailed claim to support its header. Furthermore, BP’s website is filled with captions pertaining to its accomplishment, such as, “Compensating those in the seafood industry and restoring consumer confidence in seafood from the Gulf of Mexico are priorities for BP, the Gulf states and the US government.” These captions and headliners introduce readers to BP’s improvement of commercial fishing, seafood and environment.
To further support the pictures and captions, BP shows its financial commitment to restoring the affected regions by providing a timeline of its seemingly impressive expenditures to accept accountability for the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. BP’s “Gulf of Mexico Restoration” homepage features a large multicolored financial chart, which boasts payments made as of December 21, 2013 related to the restoration efforts in excess of forty billion dollars. Payment reasons include: response and cleanup, claims, advances and settlements, funding for the natural resource damage assessment process, state-led tourism campaigns, state-led seafood marketing programs, and state-led seafood testing. BP publicized an estimate of the total costs incurred because of the incident on November 2010, which added up to nearly forty billion dollars (Bryant 2011). Additionally, a link located on the homepage titled “Supporting Long-Term Research” discloses information about an agreement made between BP and the Gulf of Mexico Alliance, a non-profit partnership created to address common environmental matters, revealing that “BP has committed to pay $500 million over 10 years to support independent research through the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative.” BP provides the public with an exact amount for each of the expenses related to restoring the Gulf Coast.
In conclusion, BP’s website uses three strategies to try to repair its reputation: publishing beautiful pictures of beaches a underwater habitats, using strongly titled headers and captions to repair its reputation and regain the faith of its consumers, and providing all of their financial expenditures involved in the restoration of the Gulf Coast.
Since this incident, BP has recreated itself by focusing on the wellbeing of places such as the Gulf Coast. Coombs concludes his crisis and communications analysis by stating, “It is difficult to distill all that is known about crisis management into one concise entry. I have tried to identify the best practices and lessons created by crisis management researchers and analysts. While crises begin as a negative/threat, effective crisis management can minimize the damage and in some cases allow an organization to emerge stronger than before the crisis” (Coombs 2007). In the eyes of the public, BP was able to make a full recovery from largest marine oil spill in history by swiftly conveying the steps it took to fix the damage to the Gulf Coast and keeping the public informed, step-by-step, of its progression using pictures, language, and financials. BP’s most effective strategy, in recapturing America’s trust, is the images published on its “Gulf of Mexico Restoration” website. Without visual evidence, BP’s financial statements, captions and headliners don’t carry the same weight. Pictures of the regions beaches, wildlife and its habitats substantially impacted how society perceived BP.