While Gulf residents and workers claim BP oil is balking over making relatively small expenditures in oil clean-up "efforts", in comparison to enormity of the spill disaster, one thing is for sure: BP is spending money on ad campaigns to help its image-lots of money. Those BP ads aren't limited to tv, but there does some to be a common slant.
BP TV ads are questionable-questionable as to whether the ads are helping BP'S image (apparently the misconception that BP must be under), or inspiring more and more rage as the oil disaster reigns with no end in sight.
Now apparently BP's been buying up keyword advertising with Google. It's the obvious choice: BP knows news is flowing-so it's trying to contain the flow, and being about as effective as other efforts.
Unfortunately the oil giant believes it's a great idea to purchase Google keywords galore, including those majors combos or phrases like 'BP News' and combinations ad infinitum (it seems to only be the beginning, with those basics like 'BP News 2010, BP Oil Spill, etc).
While the BP keyword ad purchase, in and of itself, might not look so bad for the company (BP has got a lot of image reconstruction to tackle after all), INTENT is what tends to really turn things sour.
BP Television ads have already been criticized, for both content and big-time funding that many believe is better used elsewhere (as in cleaning up the oil spill faster). But topping BP'S tv ads, the oil company's Google keywords purchases take the cake-this time, not necessarily for the money spent, but for what appears a stab at intentionally misleading the public:
Plug in keywords 'BP News', and Google will give you roughly 950 million returns. An ad, BP comes up front and center-first on the list of returns.
Read the link first (www.BP.com/GulfOfMexicoResponse), and you'll get the clue that you're bound for slanted 'news' of BP as final destination.
However, for the average person who is probably going to be drawn to the descriptive text first, BP's included text for the link reads: "Info about the Gulf of Mexico Spill Learn More about How BP is Helping."
Info about the Gulf of Mexico Spill? Whose info? Just go ahead and insert BP in its place, for accuracy: "Info about (BP) Learn More about How BP is Helping." (the 'How BP is Helping' phrase isn't even worth addressing).
BP, BP, BP: After the oil disaster that has caused American emotions ranging from rage to hatred, misleading is probably not the way to go if you want to keep any image (let alone better it). An informational site to help in your PR nightmare, which continues to get worse by the moment (and not only because of the spill itself)-you're trying to gain foothold of a more positive image, understood. But don't present that area as seemingly unbiased, when it's truly comprised of strictly BP-slanted materials: it's not "Info about the Gulf of Mexico", BP.
People don't like being misled. Please, don't give the public one more reason to be inspired toward hatred.