Oil Watch Florida: In-Depth Coverage

Advertising in the BP Oil Spill

Article by Matt Walsh

Estimates for the amount of money BP spent on ads range from $5.6 million to over $50 million.

The price of the ad blitz is unknown for now. Because publications will not disclose the amount of money a company or corporation spends on ads, it is unclear of how much money BP spent on the blitz.

The general feelings among UF students and faculty about the ads are negative.

“I don’t care about ads,” said Yilin Meng, a graduate student studying chemistry. “I care about results.”

He said he thinks that BP should be spending the money used for ads on things that will help clean up the Gulf of Mexico.

He is not alone.

Over 830,000 people joined the Facebook fan page “boycott BP” while less than 38,000 people are members of the BP America Facebook fan page.

“The ad campaign to me seems to be aimed at sort of trying to repair their image to those that aren't necessarily affected,” said Seth Oyer, the president of Clean Fan Communication, a crisis public relations firm, and a UF graduate. “People that are certainly see right through it, they don't really care about what this commercial says."

The image-repairing ads run on TV and span across giant pages in newspapers such as the New York Times and USA Today. They are also in local newspapers like the Gainesville Sun. “I think the ad with that guy who was raised in Louisiana and now works for BP is really affective stuff,” said John Sutherland, an advertising professor at UF.

He was referring to the “making this right” ad with a BP employee, Darryl Willis, who works with claims filed by those who have been affected by the spill.

Sutherland said that many companies in the past lead ad blitzes like this one when a controversy overcame them.

Earlier in 2010, Toyota launched an ad campaign apologizing for faulty safety specs on cars it produced. But the blitz reminded everyone that Toyota sold cars in America 50 years ago.

Sutherland said that ads are a public relations tool that allows a company to control content within legal guidelines.

He said customers can hold companies accountable for making false claims in their ads, so big corporations can take months to create a working promotion.

Some people, such as Danny Monroe, a mechanic in the UF Physical Plant believe that the ads are a legitimate way of showing what BP is doing to clean up and help those affected.

He said he was in the Navy and believes that BP is doing everything they can to fix the problem. He said he was impressed by the submersibles working a mile under the surface of the water.

The start of August is the start of the second quarter for the stock market. Though the cost of ads BP has undertaken is unclear now, it will show through in its marketing costs next month.