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Muskingum College BP's Rebranding: Green Public

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Muskingum College BP’s Rebranding: Green Public Relations A Senior Seminar Submitted to The Faculty of the Economics, Accounting, and Business Department By Shuntaro Tadano 5 December, 2008 Table of Contents Introduction…………………………………………………………………………..1 Rebranding…………………………………………………………………………....3 Green PR by BP………………………………………………………………………4 Speech………………………………………………………………………………...5 Publication…………………………………………………………………………….6 Sustainability Report………………………………………………………………….7 BP Magazine…………………………………………………………………………..8 Press Release…………………………………………………………………………..8 Campaign……………………………………………………………………………...9 On the Street………………………………………………………………………….10 Helios House………………………………………………………………………….12 Perception of Consumers……………………………………………………………..13 Survey………………………………………………………………………………...14 Memory and Emotion………………………………………………………………...15 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………16 In 1998, as a result of a merger between Amoco and British Petroleum, BP Amoco was born, and later Arco and Castrol joined with BP Amoco. １ This combined group took a step forward and became a single brand, BP, in 2000 in order to survive in the 21st century. In the late 1990s, awareness of climate change had grown significantly and criticism of burning fossil fuels became stronger than ever. As a new brand, BP identified its four core brand values; performance, innovation, environmental leadership, and progressive ideas.２３ This rebranding cost "some $7million" for research and preparation.４ The new BP's sunflower-like logo, Helios mark, represents all forms of energies and is named after the ancient Greek sun god. This symbol represents their determination to go beyond petroleum and to become a greener company. John Seifert, chairman of the Global Brand Community at Ogilvy, a PR agency, commented that Ogilvy built real brand equity and an emotional affinity to BP.５ Eight years have passed since the dawn of Helios, and now green advertisements by BP are everywhere. While data suggests a rise in CO2 in the atmosphere, anxiety toward climate change is growing, and oil is being burned around the world. Now consumers are questioning what it is to be a 'green' oil company, and that is what BP is trying to answer. This paper reviews BP's controversial 'green' PR and analyzes how successful it was. The merger between BP and Amoco in 1998 "made between non-competitors for the good fit available, and to gain cultural advantage, offered a much better opportunity for long-term brand building." ６ In 2000, BP Amoco rebranded itself as BP with an entirely new logo to go "beyond petroleum". In 2005, BP created a new business called BP Alternative Energy. This branch of the company was designed to be "green" from the beginning, and therefore this paper will not focus on this brand. Led by Lord Brown, Chief Executive Officer, BP continued delivering messages through PR tools and campaigns. Even after a fatal explosion of the Texas City Refinery in 2005, consistent green PR overwhelmed BP’s bad image and many third party surveys showed BP as having a good reputation after that year. In 2007, an internal brand survey was conducted and BP announced that "[t]he results were very encouraging, with everyone recognizing the Helios even without the letters BP. The research showed that it's the color combination that's recognizable, not simply the Helios shape. People also said that the green and yellow logo symbolized an innovative, fresh, environmental company." ７ This paper consists of two chapters: how BP used PR tools to deliver messages, and how consumers perceived these messages. The term Green PR does not frequently appear in a marketing textbooks. However, it has already become a commonly used phrase in certain publications, and its basic purpose is to enhance the green image of the organization as a whole ８. As many other corporations have done, BP has used various tools to create its image as environmentally friendly. This paper will introduce some general PR tools as green PR if they intended to deliver a green image, and it will focus specifically on three types of output: speech, publication, and campaign. It will then examine their effect on consumers and argue it from a psychological point of view. It is important to note that some tools could be identified as institutional advertising or promotion depending on their details. However, all information from BP consistently has an aim; to create a corporate image as green. Therefore, those specific categorizations are not necessary in this paper. Needless to say, speech is a powerful tool of public relations. A speech by someone famous in public can be broadcast or featured by the press, and this media coverage is a very good method of conveying messages with little or no expense. Speeches by BP's workers, especially executives, dating as far back as 1995, can be found on the website. A famous speech was delivered at Stanford University by John Browne, the Chief Executive of BP, in 1997. Its message was so surprising that the speech was featured in many news stories because he, as the top officer of an oil company, addressed cautious concerns about "global climate change".９ Even much later, this speech was referred to in many news stories, which contributed to form a BP's image because readers were exposed the same story again and again. Mentioning corporate social responsibility, Browne addressed a need to take precautionary actions. Until his resignation in 2007, he had delivered a number of speeches about BP's achievements and current efforts toward climate change at universities and conferences all over the world. Another example of important speech is the one which Lord Brown's successor, Tony Hayward, gave at the International Regulators’ Offshore Safety Forum, right after the explosion in Texas. This kind of immediate action against negative publicity should be thought of first and foremost to save farther damage.８ １０ The next tool used for public relations is publication. Varieties of publications and their back issues such as press releases, reports, reviews, presentations and magazines are available on the BP website. These are very powerful PR tools to "convey messages and create images." ８ In this section, three examples of publications are shown: a sustainability report, the BP Magazine, and press releases. An important strategy of publication is to deliver the same messages again and again so that company can show that they are doing their job consistently. Consistent communication would be able to overwhelm the company's negative publicity. １１ Consistency in design themes can be seen throughout BP’s publications, with the exception of the full-color version of the BP Magazine, and those contents are differentiated depending on the main target readers: sustainability reports for stakeholders, BP Magazine for BP members, and press releases for business. BP has released sustainability reports and one can download these back issues from 1998 onward. Due to the growing concerns for both the working and natural environments, the seventy-eight-page report was published in 2005 after the explosion in Texas, and as of 2007, the report which is about a half volume of 2005 and little less than 1998, is now available in five different languages. The reports have been consistent with their corporate colors: green, greenish yellow, and yellow since 2003. The sustainability report is now given the same importance as the annual report: they are "intended to maximize disclosure, transparency and stakeholder dialogue."１２ The design of the sustainability report is done by the VSA Partners, Inc., and so are the annual reports and the corporate web sites.１２１３ Jacquelyn Ottman, author of Green Marketing , claims that the transparency is critical for credibility, and, especially, according to the article, "third-party credibility is vital."１４ Unlike the report in 2003, which is the first report by VSA that focused on overall business, environment and society; the report in 2007 focused on operations, climate change and development. Furthermore, as VSA claimed that the report is consistent with a sustainable image.１２ In comparison, Exxon Mobile publishes a more complex corporate citizenship reports which have five points: environment, workplace, corporate governance, human rights and development.１５ The BP Magazine is published three to four times a year for external and internal readers of BP in order to highlight the daily activities of BP which cannot be covered through the annual report or by the sustainability report. Archives are, of course, available on the web. Although the text-only versions and the HTML version consist of the same design theme as the sustainability report, the full-color version is rich in color and looks like an industrial journal. The BP Magazine covers world-wide reports on related people and places and is written in a way which helps readers to be proud of BP. A recent issue features topics such as the next Olympic Games in London (of which BP is an official partner), oil prices, Trinidad, the source of natural gas, and more. BP publishes other types of magazines such as Frontiers, which focuses primarily on technology, and Horizon , which focuses mainly on business. After the Texas City Refinery explosion on March 23, 2005, the incident was hardly featured by any of the issues until the third issue in 2006 mentioned it as an example of accidents to talk about safety management.１６ The last tool of public relations is a press release. A press release includes new facts and campaigns with a little commentary, with the company's profile and contact information coming at the end. It uses mainly text, and the usage of tables, charts or photographs is limited. In addition, BP's press release consists mainly of text and some links for a web site version, and sometimes it includes notes to editors and additional important explanations.１７ Back issues of press release are available on the web, but few press releases which explain the explosion of the Texas City Refinery is found. The press release is one of the most important public relations tools, and PR people have been looking for magic words to get the media’s attention in order to be picked up by search engines.
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