Attack your Critics: Good Reputation Rebuilding Strategy?

(Photo credit . . . Wong/Getty; Ngan/Getty)

Public relations academics will be analyzing for years BP's handling of communications during the Deepwater Horizon leak.

While many thought Tony Hayward (". . . Everything we can see at the moment suggest that the overall environmental impact of this will be very, very modest.") was not stellar in the role of chief public spokesperson, the jury remains out about whether his successor Bob Dudley will manage BP's reputation rebuilding strategy any better.

He's not off to a textbook start: In a speech to the Confederation of British Industry, Dudley claimed:

A great rush to judgment by a fair number of observers before the full facts could possibly be known, even from some in our industry. I watched graphic projections of oil swirling around the gulf, around Florida, across and around Bermuda to England -- these appeared authoritative and inevitable. The public fear was everywhere.

So much for taking on the burden of responsiblity as the starting point for a reputation overhaul.

Comments

[Rucsandra Saulean]

I guess Bob Dudley hasn't heard of the notion of being "in a hole" and all that comes with it. "When you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop digging," Will Rogers says, and that clearly applies here, as well. But if BP keeps on making such awful choices in the people to hold their flag, I don't see any happy ending to their story.

[Boyd Neil]

Let's give him the benefit of the doubt for the time being. What he says may not be wrong, simply inappropriate for time.