Ready for the BP Backlash Backlash?

Hear that? That's the sound of the British Petroleum (BP) brand hitting rock bottom. Well, that and the sound of oil gushing into the ocean from rock bottom; but it's mostly BP hitting bottom.

As every recovery program teaches us, you cannot start back toward the top until you've hit rock bottom. So are we ready for the BP backlash backlash?

Before you say "too soon," let's wait to see if the first step of BP's brand revival comes today, code-named (James Bond-like) "Top Kill."

As the world is glued to the live feed from the oil spill site in the Gulf of Mexico, BP will (maybe) go ahead with a "top kill" maneuver that, while successful in above-ground well situations, has never been tested 5,000 feet underwater. If it is successful, BP can point to having successfully invented a new deep water safety procedure, the brand's gift to the world.

If "top kill" doesn't work, America's increasingly irritated "president doesn't have a choice, and he better go in and completely take over, perhaps with the military in charge," said one Florida Congressman. In that scenario, BP will be relieved of its duties, and the inability to control the ongoing disaster will be remembered as the fault of the U.S. military. A win, of sorts, for BP.

Plus, there is a whole new demographic economically dependent of the brand's survival: Humorists.

NPR's Marketplace reports that "The company’s oil spill disaster is turning out to be a boon for satirists. Parody products (such as Despair Inc.) are using the company’s logo and applying their own funny sayings... A typical bestselling product moves a few hundred units for the small, Austin-based company. The BP design has sold a close to 2,000 shirts."

BP can also count on the limitation of human memory, the half-life of outrage, and the intrinsic laziness of consumers.

In its U.K. homeland, BP's reputation is already polling up, with citizens saying that a boycott of the brand is not worth the effort. As one intrepid British consumer reasons, "You might feel strongly about something but when it comes down to it convenience prevails. I think I would (boycott BP), but I'm not sure I would go completely out of my way to do it."

Those sentiments were echoed in a Washington Post survey of American consumers. Score one for inertia!

More than anything though, BP can look to its predecessor in these matters.

Exxon's 1989 spill of 11 million gallons of oil offshore in Alaska is still likely to go down in history as the most environmentally damaging spill of all time. Yes, there was a call for boycotts. There was satire. Yet, just twenty years later, Exxon is receiving numerous awards and is one of the largest, most profitable brands in the world.