Special guest post by Chris Paine. Chris directed “Who Killed the Electric Car?” His next film, “Revenge of the Electric Car” is set for release 2011.  Currently, he is working on two projects related to the oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. http://www.facebook.com/revengeoftheelectriccar http://www.facebook.com/chris.paine

Exxon Valdez veteran marine toxicologist and author Riki Ott (“Not One Drop”) laid out some disturbing comparisons of the two oil disasters during our recent shoot in Louisiana.

BP is using the same playbook Exxon used on us in Alaska.  It’s all about minimizing liability and damages in court. So right off the bat, BP is underestimating how much is spilling, understating harm to the environment, claiming  dispersants are “safe” and “not toxic” to marine life, and putting workers at risk because BP doesn’t want to supply respirators. BP says it will pay all “legitimate” claims, but what this means is ’see you in court.’ Same old story with Exxon.

Here are a few examples:

1). Broken Promises:  The oil industry makes false promises to get permits:

-Exxon: Promise: Double hull tankers and advanced vessel tracking so ‘not one drop’ of oil would spill in Alaska.  Actuality: Single hull tanker grounds, destroying pristine ecosystem and fishing industry for decades.

-BP:  Promise: State of the art drilling platforms with fail-safe safety procedures. Actuality: Multiple reckless decisions lead to massive oil spill threatening wide destruction of Gulf ecosystem, fishing  and tourism.

2). Manipulate Government Regulations

-Exxon:  Manipulate government regulatory bodies to receive multiple exemptions. Examples: A) Take advantage of OSHA exemptions for colds and flus to mask chemical poisonings of cleanup workers  B) Convince EPA and Coast Guard to rubber stamp contingency plans like using low grade “mill pond” buoys instead of “ocean grade” buoys. C)   Circumvent vastly variable effectiveness  of dispersants for different oil grades by persuading EPA to create one “compromise” effectiveness rating D) Convince EPA to sign off on toxicologist reports for dispersants that have only  been tested on older animals, not juveniles.

-BP: Examples A-D above still apply.

3). Spiller in Charge

The oil polluter becomes a ‘super state’ in charge of running response and cleanup. America leaves spiller in charge of cleanup. The Coast Guard sides with industry.

-Exxon:  USCG signed off on “miles of beaches” treated. USCG backed up Exxon’s control of images.

-BP: Signs of similar activity.

4). Under-Reporting Spill:

-Exxon:   In Alaska, Exxon reported up to 3 times less oil spilt then estimated by independent experts.

-BP:  IN Gulf, BP at first estimated  its spill at 1000 barrels of crude oil per day, then increased it to 5000 once researchers said it was at least this much. Now independent researchers using satellite images estimate as much as  70,000 barrels a day.

5). Under-Reporting  Cleanup

-Exxon: Said that it recovered 10 to 12% of oil on beaches in Prince William Sound but this was based on its own underreported spill size. When you take actual spill size into account, Exxon actually only cleaned up about 4%.   Eyewitnesses reported as much of 80% of recovered “oil” as being water in the last of three tankers that off-loaded “oil” from the stricken Exxon Valdez.

-BP:  Initially claimed to be recovering 20% of spill with its first siphon but this was based on inaccurate flow meter data . Later estimates for recovered oil per day are considerably lower

6).  Minimize public perception of impact

- Exxon: immediately put a flight restriction over area to prevent photography. It also required cleanup crews and workers not to talk to media or take photographs

-BP:  Many reports of similar measures. Dispersants used to prevent visible oil slick. Massive messaging effort to minimize public and government reaction.

7). Sick wildlife

-Exxon.  Ecosystem collapsed 4 years after Exxon Valdez spill.  Pink Salmon eventually recovered but Herring fishery utterly collapsed and 15 of 24 species have not recovered 21 years later

-BP:  Effect of oil and dispersants still unknown — and NOAA has not yet initiated comprehensive ecosystem studies despite vast extent of oiled estuaries and marshes.

8). Sick Communities

-Exxon.   Medical and social trauma caused by collapse of fishing industry never anticipated or compensated.   Domestic violence, divorce, suicide, drugs, and depression rates due to financial stress and cultural dislocation were at historic highs for 20 years with PTSD as high as 99% increases.

-BP.  Hospitalized oil clean up workers.  Already signs of severe financial stress amongst unemployed fisherman just recovering from Hurricanes Katrina/Rita.  Cleanup workers facing illness without proper protection.

9). Minimize liability, Write off legal costs

-Exxon.   Exxon appeals $5 billion punitive fine for 20 years until claim to reduced to $507 million – about 10% of original claims. Legal fees become a business expense, written off against revenue from taxpayers.

BP: ‘We will pay all legitimate claims’.  “Translation?” says Ott, “See you in court.”

The British should be familiar with parodies.  After all they invented the form…

BP is ripe for mocking, as witnessed by the launch of the faux BP Twitter account, @BPGlobalPR,  which already has outdistanced BP’s real Twitter stream, attracting nearly 60,000 followers, compared to the company’s 7,000 followers.

While it is true that the company’s real twitter account @BP_America offers continued updates about actions taken toward a solution of the international calamity, no one buys that the effort alone is commendable.  And yet, in reading and watching all the hyperbole that the company puts out, all the gaffes made by its CEO and all the meager attempts at “talking” to a public through full page ads in the NY Times, daily, the company continues to exude a righteous behavior that is irritating and obnoxious, as well as arrogant and disdainful – certainly not characteristics that can endear a company to its many publics.

In the words of a tweeter, “The engineers (may) be busy but PR (folks) are (in) hiding.”

And so, while BP’s PR advisors seem to be AWOL, people turn to mocking.

It’s a real circus out there.

Twitterers are tweeting about the now “extinct mermaids” to the “sharks getting entangled in oil geysers” to changing the word catastrophe and agreeing to call it a “whoopsie daisy.”  The faux account has sold “BP cares” T-shirts with the profits from the sales going to the nonprofit Gulf Restoration Network. Apparently its humorous blasts have been re-tweeted by everyone from filmmaker Michael Moore to singer Michelle Branch.  And then there were preposterous headlines made by Kevin Costner and numerous TV appearances by Bill Nye, the Science Guy, the children’s show host who is apparently now an authority on the issue.

Apparently the faux twitter account’s fictional character “Terry” who has steadfastly remained in character, weakened and fell out of character when asked as to why this effort, to which he answered, “Companies screw up and then they hire folks like me to come in to make it look like they’re doing something while they figure out how to make money again.”

Well, there you have it – the public mocking of a company…

The curious thing is that according to a dialogue that Ad Age had with BP spokesman Toby Odone, he said that, “he wasn’t aware of any attempts by the company to have the feed taken down.” In playing the role of a real BP spokesman, the bogus one took the opposite stance – the one that the real BP should have taken in the first place by saying, “I’ve heard rumors of fake BP PR accounts, and I assure you if we find out who is in charge of them, we will annihilate them.” In further mocking the company, he added, “BP is doing everything we can to save our reputation and hopefully salvage some oil out of all this.”

Here’s advice for BP: hire the faux twitter account owner for advice as to next moves or push your PR folks out of hiding and make them unleash a PR campaign that is based on critical thought and one that is substantive…

As if the oil spill catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico, with the potential of a global calamity of unimagined proportions, is not enough of a disaster for BP corporate, the company’s well recognized “Beyond Petroleum” campaign, launched almost 10 years ago, has come back to bite it.

The “beyond petroleum” campaign, which positioned the company as “transcending the oil sector” and as being innovative, progressive and environmentally responsible and performance-driven, now seems more of an empty marketing ploy than a true descriptor of a company on a mission.

It has the stench of public deception.

It is not BP’s first petroleum mess and PR disaster that it has wrestled with, proving that being environmentally responsible has to go beyond a marketing tag line. In 2006, it was disclosed that BP’s Prudhoe Bay pipeline, which supplies 8% of U.S oil production, was corroded and leaking — for many years because nobody inspected it. It is interesting to note John Kenney’s wry comment at that time in The New York Times, “The company that claims to be ‘beyond petroleum’ shut down a pipeline that serves up 400,000 barrels of oil a day. Maybe Coca-Cola’s new line should be, ‘It’s good for your teeth.’”

This time around, according to BP PLC Chairman Lamar McKay, “no preparations for such an accident were made because it was unforeseeable, and seemed inconceivable, that equipment in place to avert an oil-well blowout, would fail,” referring to a valve mechanism sitting on top of the oil well nearly a mile down in the ocean, which failed to shut in the malfunction. Reports surfaced that it had forgone a $500,000 “acoustic trigger” shut-off device required of offshore oil wells operating near Norway and Brazil.  Apparently, this valve is the last line of defense against oil spurting out of the earth, but it didn’t seem to warrant another half-million expense.

Wouldn’t an environmentally concerned company have a plan ready for the “inconceivable” even if it was “unforeseeable” and include a plan that addresses the “last line of defense” as well?  As Kenney commented back in 2006, “If BP hadn’t been so “holier than thou” in its marketing during the last few years, I doubt that it would be getting hammered right now — at least to this extent. “

Speaking of history repeating itself…

Creating a glorified company image through marketing tag lines, without a genuine effort to become what it says, will always backfire.  Far better to take the cautious track and first make a genuine attempt to engage the public in a debate or a corporate rallying cry to change the paradigm – before you preach to the world what you cannot, or have not intention to, uphold.

In an ironic twist, BP was recently named as a finalist for a federal award honoring offshore oil companies displaying “outstanding safety and pollution prevention.”

Retiring the “Beyond Petroleum” posturing, has been urged before and considered, but rejected to date.  Now is a good time…

We introduce our fourth guest blogger of our monthly series on the 25th of every month, in celebration of our 25th anniversary this year, Tom Searcy, who helps companies in finding business solutions.

Tom Searcy, co-author of  “Whale Hunting: How to Land Big Sales and Transform Your Company”, author of “RFPs Suck!” and founder of Hunt Big Sales, is a sought after business solutions expert for small to mid-sized companies.  Follow Tom’s thought leadership through his blog: www.huntingbigsales.com or access his resources at www.huntbigsales.com.

I remember watching a documentary on nudists when I was of an age that I couldn’t yet buy my own “nudist” magazines at the drugstore…the ones with the brown wrappers…if they even bothered wrapping them. The documentary talked about the “freedom of nudity”, its “natural state” and “the beauty of the human form.” It was confusing as hell to me- because the human form, at least the ones at the colony, were not beautiful. Even at distance and with discreetly placed black-box-blockouts, these were some pretty unattractive people. Their nudity not only put me in a position to look at things I didn’t want too, but it answered questions about people, (surgery scars, stretch marks, the body’s response to gravity over time for example), that I was not asking.

The documentary was about a microscopic sliver of the population who had made a distinct choice. But we are all living naked now. You, me, our companies, our children. We are all naked. And we will be beyond naked very soon- (BTW, I don’t know what “beyond naked” means but I think it involves Flickr™ photos of our last set of x-rays and dental records). Are you ready to live naked?

YouTube™, Flickr™, Digg™, Twitter™, Facebook™, LinkedIn™ and the rest of the usual suspects of the social media revolution are creating a naked world. Every customer experience, every shipped product and online FAQ answer, each touchpoint in the chain of your business is open for scrutiny and discussion. You may be aware of this, which puts you ahead of the huge brands out there being lampooned every day in painful and direct ways. But what is your strategy?

I work with small to mid-sized companies who are trying to grow quickly. One of the things that we work on is their market image. One of the nice things about everyone being naked is that it’s easier to do the necessary research on a prospect company before you see them. But…It works in reverse…(sometimes when I work with companies they forget this part).

Here’s what I tell my small to mid-sized companies:

• Control – You don’t have it any more, so take a deep breath and stand tall, proud and naked. You can control your integrity and your authenticity. Focus on that. Don’t focus on the buttoning-down of over point of entry and exit to your perceived brand machine. That’s like trying to grab the wind with a sack.
• It’s Never Fair – Of course attacks are unfair. No one is trying to provide a ‘fair and balanced’ story, as if there ever is one. Don’t waste time trying to make their attacks ‘fair’ by offering your point-by-point answers. The bell has rung- you are not going to un-ring it. You can just respond.
• Fast and Good – A quick response that is reasonable is much better than a slow response that is perfect. Do you see Toyota out there floundering with the slow and perfect story? That’s because slow in the naked world is by definition imperfect.
• Find Your Voice – As a writer and speaker, I go through a number of exercises to make certain I am writing in my voice. Not what I think to be the “professional and homogenized” voice. In the heralded brands around the world, one of the key elements to the rankings is their consistency and authenticity of their voice. You need to make certain that the voice is an authentic voice.
• Be 3-D – All the movies are going 3-dimensional for the same reason; the audience expects a different experience. You have to be multi-dimensional in your market message. A website with a never-changing brochure of product/service lists doesn’t cut it. Customers want the multi-dimensional experience. Give it to them. Videos, photos, blogs and ever-changing content.
• Thousand Points of Light – Your brand is no longer just the crafted message of your marketing firm. The touchpoints are now your brand- employees, customers, vendors and competitors. You have to be out there knowing what is being said. You can’t survey once a quarter and keep track of the voices. This has to be a daily part of someone’s role. Key word searches and tracking make it easier- but it has to be done constantly.

On this blog-site, you can read past entries to see what it is like to live naked. Noemi’s blogs provide examples of how ugly in can look when big companies try to hide. This is especially true for those companies who have not yet realized that the emperor not only isn’t wearing clothes, but his wardrobe has been shredded. But the question for you should be “What is my strategy for living naked?”

When thinking through your strategy, include these questions:

1. On a simple Google search of my company’s name and my name, what comes up and in what order? Is it what I want to come up? How can I change it?
2. How do we tell our story to the world at the level of customer, employee and supplier? How is the world telling our story to us in the naked world at the level of customer, employee and supplier? What does it mean about us if no one is telling our story?
3. Who are the examples of companies, regardless of industry, that we look up too in the naked world? What can we learn from them?

Fortunately for me, living in a naked world requires neither diet, nor exercise nor surgery. But it does require confidence and a strategy. What’s yours?