As 45 percent of marketers reading AdAge say they’d take up the communicating for BP and ‘Leroy Stick’ continues to publish the satirical @BPGlobalPR Twitter handle, let’s take a minute to reinforce what is required for BP (and all companies in crisis) to retain their social license to operate.

First, do the right thing. Act as required to fix problems quickly. Take the additional actions required to mitigate damages. Do yet more work to ensure that the problem will not happen again.

Then, talk about it. Sure, communicate while acting, but communicate in support of action. Efforts to distract, distort or do anything other than directly and contritely fix it will fail.

Reputation is often forged by crisis – behavior in the face of adversity. Communication is important, but people want to see actions.

Instead, we’re seeing ineffective action *and* poor communication.

Consider that BP’s response plan has been denounced as ‘severely flawed’ and says “No statement shall be made containing … promises that property, ecology or anything else will be restored to normal…” (note the recent national advertising promising to ‘make this right’). And the company is restricting access and buying attention. Meanwhile, the scope of the problem continues to grow — 55 days and counting today.

What do you think of BP’s action and communication in the wake of the spill? How would you handle it?

Posted: June 14, 2010 at 2:29 pm by Ryan Hanser