BP's First Global Advertising Campaign Since Deepwater Horizon Accused of Being 'Deceptive and Hypocritical'

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Nearly a decade after being held responsible for the largest marine oil spill in history, BPโ€™s first global advertising campaign in ten years has been denounced as โ€œdeceptive andย hypocriticalโ€.

The globalย advertising campaign called โ€œwe see possibilities everywhereโ€ aims to showcase BPโ€™s efforts to embrace clean energy and includes a series of short videos profiling the British oil giantโ€™s plan to increase its energy production while lowering itsย emissions.

BP did not respond to DeSmog UK‘s request for comment on time for publication but it previously said the campaignย would allow the company to communicate its low-carbon activities in an โ€œexcitingโ€ way. But critics say that with clean energy amounting to only around three percent of the companyโ€™s total capital expenditure programme, the campaign is little more than a blatant โ€œgreenwashingโ€ย effort.

It is the first time BP has taken part in a major corporate revamp of its image since the โ€˜Beyond Petroleumโ€™ campaign and follows months of record profits for the company, which benefited from stronger oil prices and higher production from new oilย fields.

โ€˜Possibilitiesย everywhereโ€™

Speaking in Davos, BPโ€™s CEO Bob Dudley admitted that the last decade has been โ€œvery difficultโ€ for the company, which had to manage significant reputational damage of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf ofย Mexico.

โ€œI donโ€™t think we had the credibility to talk about things in an exciting way,โ€ he told CNBC.

โ€œI think itโ€™s time for us to tell our story a little bit differently, let people know we are engaged in this big energy transition and we have a big coreย business.โ€

BPโ€™s latest campaign, which is due to be rolled out in the UK, US and Germany with supporting print and digital advertising in the Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal, promotes a broad and generic message that BP is working โ€œmake all forms of energy cleaner andย betterโ€.

The campaign promotes BPโ€™s partnership with solar company Lightsource and its intention to develop natural gas and electric cars but makes no mention of oil or climate change โ€” omissions Chris Garrard, Co-Director of the campaign organisation Culture Unstained, described as โ€œdeceptive andย hypocriticalโ€.

According to its latest annual report, BP is investing $200 million in Lightsource. However, a quick glance at BPโ€™s core business shows the company remains committed to hydrocarbons, producing an average of 3.6 million barrels of oil per day and with 2017 the companyโ€™s most successful year for exploration sinceย 2004.

Last February, BP said that most of the companyโ€™s strategy focused on clean energy, which would amount to $0.5 billion of its $15 to $16 billion annual capital expenditure programmes. Given BPโ€™s total $16.5 billion capital expenditure in 2017, clean energy amounted to around three percent of its business thatย year.

โ€˜Ghastlyย hypocrisyโ€™

BPโ€™s overall small investment in clean energy comes in stark contrast to the overwhelming focus of its campaign on its efforts to create low-emission energy โ€” making it unrecognisable as an oilย company.

Yet, in Davos earlier this month, where climate change was on top of the agenda, Dudley repeated BPโ€™s projection that oil demand will grow to 1.4 million additional barrels a day this year โ€” a forecast that continues to drive BPโ€™sย investments.

โ€œWe think itโ€™s not a race to renewables,โ€ Dudley said, โ€œitโ€™s got to be a combination of many things: renewables and natural gasโ€. The use of gas is widely promoted in the campaign for days when the sun doesnโ€™t shine and the wind doesnโ€™t blow, ย โ€œnatural gas can step inโ€ย .

Jeremy Leggett, a former petroleum geologist turned solar entrepreneur, slammed the campaign as โ€œdireโ€ and โ€œmiles out of line of current ways of thinkingโ€ about the energyย transition.

โ€œThis is a ghastly hypocrisy in the face of an existential threat to the planet,โ€ he told DeSmog UK.

The $0.5 billion of BPโ€™s capital expenditure programmes spent on clean energy is far from enough to transition the companyโ€™s business, said Kingsmill Bond, Energy Strategist at Carbonย Tracker.

โ€œItโ€™s fine talking the big game but in the face of systematic change you have to do more than just tinker,โ€ he added, warning that BP faced being caught out by the market shifting away from fossil fuels quicker than the companyโ€™s ability toย adapt.

In many ways, BP has shown little signs of wanting to transform its business model. Indeed, BP remains a member of trade associations such as the Australian Petroleum Production & Exploration Association (APPEA), FuelsEurope ย and National Association of Manufacturing that consistently oppose and lobby against ambitious climate changeย policy.

Robert Brulle, a Professor of Sociology at Drexel University who was worked extensively on fossil fuel companiesโ€™ marketing efforts, described the campaign as โ€œclever corporateย propagandaโ€.

Brulle denounced BPโ€™s campaign as deliberately making partial claims about the companyโ€™s green record to create a โ€œpositive one-sided positive impression of the companyโ€™s corporateย responsibilityโ€.

โ€œThe bigger picture is that BP is still investing 97 percent of its business in oil. The rest is lipstick on a pig,โ€ heย said.

Brulle added that BPโ€™s campaign followed similar attempts by other oil giants such as ExxonMobil and Shell to gloss over their corporateย reputation.

โ€œBig oil is worried a great deal about their corporate reputation because it affects their stock price. Their corporate image becomes an economic investment. For fossil fuel companies, this is big business,โ€ heย said.

Old ways, sameย story

Despite BP CEO Dudleyโ€™s efforts to tell the companyโ€™s energy transition story โ€œa bit differentlyโ€, the campaign gives a strong sense of dรฉjร ย vu.

Leggett told DeSmog UK the campaign was โ€œstraight out of the energy toolbookโ€, using the same tools the industry has been using for the past 25ย years.

Echoing his comment, Bond, from Carbon Tracker, pointed out the strong similarities between BPโ€™s campaign and those run by energy companies such as RWE and E.ON 10 yearsย ago.

โ€œItโ€™s the same enthusiasm about the opportunities created by the solar and wind sectors. They thought it was a long slow transition but that is not how markets worked and they ended up being caught out. BP is assuming the same continuity here and they also risk being caught out,โ€ heย said.

For Garrard, of Culture Unstained, BP is recycling old stories which no longer fit theย times.

โ€œThis is a greenwash campaign that could have been put out five to 10 years ago,โ€ he said, adding that the opportunities of clean energy were already a central theme of the Beyond Petroleumย campaign.

Gerrard described the use of beautiful landscape pictures, family scenes and children as a โ€œcynical and emotionalโ€ attempt to show that โ€œBP is necessary for us to live that kind of lifeโ€ โ€” a marketing strategy that he believes fails to recognise the shift in public consciousness on climateย issues.

The campaign was jointly created by two large US-based PR giants โ€” Ogilvy, which designed BPโ€™s Beyond Petroleum campaign, and Purple Strategies, which BP previously hired to manage its PR following the Deepwater Horizon oilย spill.

Unlike similar campaigns ran by Equinor and Shell, BPโ€™s campaign does not appear to specifically target young people. For Gerrard, the campaign remains one piece of the puzzle to โ€œshore up BPโ€™s social licenceโ€. โ€œWe know that BP reaches young people in other ways, including through its school programmes,โ€ heย added.

Neither Ogilvy nor Purple Strategies responded to our questions about the campaignโ€™s messaging and targetedย audience.

Main image credit: BP

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