Beyond pathetic is BP's dumping of alternatives

Age
Thursday 2/7/2009 Page: 2

IS IT any wonder that people are cynical about marketing when a company like BP decides that after a decade of trying to be the nice guy it can now relax and just be itself? Yes, it no longer needs to pretend that it is anything but a producer of oil and gas-with a nice little sideline in alternative energy. It no longer has to bear the slings and arrows of environmentalists accusing it of greenwash for extensively promoting clean energy initiatives that were wholly disproportionate to its actual investment in those programs.

Now that it is closing its alternative energy headquarters in London - which follows last year's closure of its photovoltaic manufacturing plant at Homebush Bay - BP's army of spin doctors, branding consultants and ad agency executives can take a break.

But the only problem is that BP told its that it was more than just an oil and gas company with a patchy record in human rights. BP wanted to be regarded as "an energy company", to be part of the solution of climate change not the problem. In short, it wanted to be loved and spent a fortune wooing us.

After it bought Amoco in 2000, BP bought some small-cap solar energy companies and five years later committed $US8 billion to solar and wind energy programs and developed a biofuels program. It then hired image consultants Landor & Associates and ad agency Ogilvy & Mather to come up with an identity that reflected this conversion to renewable energy. Thus was born Beyond Petroleum.

Real people voicing their opinions about oil companies starred in their ads, making a refreshing change to the muscular commercials that typified the oil sector. The crisp clean yellow and green sunburst logo neatly encapsulated the changes, as any good brand identity should.

But this week all that washed up on BP's reputation like an oil slick on a pristine beach. "It's perhaps unfortunate for their that they came up with such a memorable line as now they appear to be hoist with their own petard," notes Wayde Bull, planning director of branding consultants Principals. BP spent nearly a decade and $US200 million persuading its it was all true. On the day it announced it was halving its clean energy investment its own public relations people trashed that bank of trust and goodwill in a matter of minutes.

"I'm not sure that it's been our branding," BP spokesman David Nicholas said. "It's a strapline that's been used in our corporate advertising." He had "no idea" if "Beyond Petroleum" would continue to be used. The sceptics who dismissed the branding as cosmetic fluff were right. BP insists its $US8 billion alternative energy investment remains but in light of this news that money seems more like a corporate social responsibility initiative than a game-changer.

So, the next time a company gushes about its new brand identity, forgive its if we stifle a yawn.