Advertising & Marketing Agency · St. Louis, MO · MediaCross, Inc.

“The Good News: Mermaids are Real.”

“The bad news: They are now extinct.” – @BPGlobalPR

Oil giant, BP, could be dealing with another disaster in addition to the one in the Gulf of Mexico; its brand was hijacked on Twitter by a sarcastic, witty and sometimes inappropriate writer, posing as the BP Global PR department’s official Twitter feed.

The account started last Wednesday afternoon with this tweet: “We regretfully admit that something has happened off of the Gulf Coast. More to Come.”

With fewer than 100 tweets, the feed has claimed nearly 20,000 followers including Alissa Milano, Michael Moore and Michelle Branch. The account is nearly quadruple the size of BP’s real feed, but BP hasn’t yet contacted Twitter to take it down.

Twitter has some guidelines on dealing with parody accounts in order to avoid impersonation. Even though the majority of the BPGlobalPR feed is clearly humorous, according to Twitter’s official rules, it’s closer to impersonation than it is parody. The feed identifies itself as “BP Public Relations,” listing its location as “Global” and it’s bio “This page exists to get BP’s message and mission statement out into the twitterverse!” It also used to use BP’s actual green-and-yellow logo on the page, but changed it to black-and-white with an oil stain on it.

Although you wouldn’t expect BP to be tweeting: “We just saw a shark fight an octopus inside the geyser. Almost made this whole thing worth it,” the best part of following @BPGlobalPR is reading the responses from people who don’t get that it’s a satirical account.

Would the real BP please stand up?

Tony Odone, a spokeman at BP, told Ad Age: “I’m not aware of whether BP has made any calls to have it taken down or addressed. People are entitled to their views on what we’r edoing and we have to live with those. We are doing the best we can to deal with the current situation and to try to stop the oil from flowing and to then clean it up.”

One disaster at a time

While BP is dealing with the damage of the oil catastrophe in the Gulf, it’s brand is suffering every day. A Google search for BP yields results from Facebook, many blogs and websites of many organizations calling for a boycott of BP.

With eleven workers dead, an estimated 70 miles of Louisiana coast hit by oil, and BP’s unsuccessful efforts to stop the leak, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Naplolitano refers to the disaster as the “largest incident response to an oil spill ever in the history of the United States.”

In a catastrophe like this, it is not surprising to see public outrage, calls for boycotts and government intervention. The satirical comments and the use of the old BP logo and the handle @BPGlobalPR isn’t something BP seems bothered by. Mr. Odone noted to Ad Age that BP is aware of the feed. “People are frustrated at what’s happening, as are we, and that’s just their way of expressing it.”

Allowing the public to voice their concerns and frustrations openly is a step in the right direction.

If you worked for BP, how would you respond?