OVERVIEW
Greenpeace UK awarded its first-ever “Emerald Paintbrush” award in 2008 to energy superpower BP. The award is given to a company that Greenpeace feels is leading the pack in the fine new art of greenwashing or overstating its environmental efforts.

At the time, BP was promoting the messaging and tagline that it was “Beyond Petroleum,” and embracing alternative energy. The company’s logo had been redesigned to be sun-filled and earthy green to inspire agreement that British Petroleum was doing all it could to save the earth around it. Greenpeace suggested in its award presentation that BP’s alternative efforts were particularly lacking when one considered how much the company was still focusing on fossil fuels.

Of course, now the world is focused on BP’s fossil fuels, in particular the ones that are floating around the Gulf of Mexico, poisoning ecosystems and costing the fishing and tourism industries countless dollars already.

On the social Web, BP has endless talking and yapping and snapping and crowing has been done about how “BP should’ve been on top of this and foreseen that and been more careful but now what’s done is done and there are 5,000 barrels of oil pouring into the Gulf daily…”

Naturally, the company has gone on the offensive, not only to show that it’s doing everything it can to put a cork in the leak (or contain the damage), but to protect the brand’s name, which has been around since 1954 when it was changed to British Petroleum from the moniker the company started with in 1909, the Anglo-Persian Oil Company. (Who knows why they changed the name? That first one really rolls off the tongue so easily.)

WEBSITE
The first step in dealing with this disaster was to use its corporate website as a place to showcase all that it is doing. The home page is dominated by the headline “Gulf of Mexico response” with rolling images of workers gathered, planes rolling in ostensibly stuffed with cleanup gear and crews, boats at the disaster site. The text briefly chronicles what the company is up to as it tries to end the oil flow, whether it’s by the blow-out provider (BOP) or containing the flow of oil at the source.

The home page also gives the appearance of a crisis control center, listing phone numbers for the BP America Press Office, the BP Press Office in London, the environmental hotline, and the wildlife-distress hotline as well as numbers for volunteers and a number if people want to offer up their boats o be used to assist with the response.

The site is stuffed with video updates, claims updates, and plenty of information that doesn’t all necessarily portray BP in the grandest of lights. It appears that the company is taking the tack of being as transparent as possible in this instance so all can see its suffering, and so it can avoid any charges that it’s shielding the public, politicians and others from its clean up and recovery efforts.

Certainly there is plenty of information the company isn’t putting on its site as well, but there does appear to be an open flow of information, especially with its links to social media and other Web sites that deal directly with the spill.

Of course, there is plenty noted about what the company is doing, how it has shrimp boats lined up to take action as soon as oil is spotted, how the spill has already cost the company $450 million (but they’re happy to do it!) But it’s hard to feel sorry for BP even though the company is surely keeping a PR army employed through this. After all, BP brought in a reported $246.1 billion last year. And its CEO, Tony Heyward, took home more than $5 million last year, a 40 percent raise from the previous year.

The Facebook page for Deepwater Horizon Response has more than 18,000 “fans” who “like” it (Facebook terminology that may be a little too positive in this instance). It also serves as a clearinghouse of information and links to the related Flickr group that shares images of the Deepwater Horizon response to the spill. And Deepwater Response also has its own YouTube channel, allowing BP to tirelessly showcase the work it is doing on the spill, including some amazing videos such as images of the spill’s plume in the water. As in its other efforts, not everything on the YouTube channel makes BP look great, but the solemnity is helping BP not misrepresent the situation it’s in.

Social media obviously allows BP to easily spread an unfiltered message to a large number of interested parties. "In a crisis situation, social media is the fastest and most effective way to reach consumers besides television," Lauren Hurvitz, a New York-based media consultant who worked in crisis public relations, told Reuters recently. "It's much more cost effective and direct."

No matter how much face-saving maneuvers BP does right now and many millions it spends to help not only clean up the spill but market that process, there will still be folks who aren’t happy with the company. Social media is being used effectively against the company just as much as it’s being used to benefit the company. The Boycott BP Facebook page already has more than 16,000 fans who “like” it.

Of course, BP and every other “energy” company have had folks railing against them since the industry got started. Back in 2007, more than 144,000 people signed up to be fans of the No Fuel Day Facebook page that urged people not to use fuel on November 19, according to the Times of London.

THE DIGITAL DOWNLOAD:
While BP gets points for using social media and the Web effectively to immediately showcase its message of being a company hard at work helping to fix the massive problem that it created when its oil rig began leaking and then sunk into the Gulf of Mexico, it has to know that it is going to take an incredibly long time for many Americans and others to not think of this spill every time the name BP sticks its sunny logo in their face. That’s the way it worked for Exxon before and it surely will be the way it works for BP as well.

Still, when it comes to filling the tank, politics can often be thrown out the window in exchange for the nearest station and the lowest price. Long-term, that’s where BP is going to win back its customers: at the pump.

In the meantime, while the folks at Greenpeace won’t likely be satisfied by BP’s recent efforts, it’s hard not to appreciate that the company is being more open than it’s ever been in the past putting on the show of caring for the earth at least. Perhaps it will help the company’s overall practices truly move in the direction of environmentalism over the long-term. At the same time, it’s helping the company, yes, save a little face and get back to business, (literally – one hopes) putting this mess behind them.