There’s an endless amount we could say about the PR nightmare that is the BP oil spill. The situation was handled poorly from the start, and BP CEO Tony Hayward hasn’t done himself any favors with his unfortunate comments downplaying the severity. In general, BP has taken a particularly passive approach in making any public statements about the crisis. In a situation as large-scale as this, passive is NOT the way you want to approach your PR plan. If you don’t say it yourself, someone else will say it for you, and that’s never a good thing.
In this case, that “someone” is an anonymous individual who has created a spoof Twitter account under the handle @BPGlobalPR, where he has pretended to be a BP spokesperson in their PR department. The tweets he provides act as satirical commentary of the situation and are appropriately hilarious. In this short period of time, @BPGlobalPR has gained quite the following with over 140,000 followers on Twitter. BP’s real PR team, @BP_America, has just over 12,000.
The guy behind the tweets, who also goes by @BPTerry and Leroy Stick, has managed to remain anonymous even after publishing a press release and through high profile interviews with the likes of ABC Global News and Advertising Age. What we do know is that multiple writers, including even his dad, contribute to his comical tweets. The best part of all this? He is using his celebrity for good. His creation and sales of BPGlobalPR t-shirts has raised over $10,000 for the Gulf Restoration Network.
Below are just a few of the entertaining tweets that have made @BPGlobalPR famous. On a serious note, though, please do your part and donate to one of the many worthy organizations committed to this crisis.
"We’re paying Google a lot of money to make sure you only have access to the best possible info on the oil spill: our info."
"We’re having an internal debate at the office. Is the Gulf of Mexico one of the Great Lakes? #bpwonders"
"Just hired an oil whisperer to teach us how to be dominant over the oil. Tsssssssst! #bptames"
“SPOILER ALERT: The leak stops eventually, everyone forgets about it and we all buy another vacation home. #cantwait”
“Just got 100k followers and our oil is headed to Florida. You know what this means… WE’RE GOING TO DISNEYWORLD! #bpcares”
“This horrible spill wouldn’t be happening in the gulf of AMERICA! Arizona knows what I’m talking ’bout!! #fistpound #bpcares”
“The good news: Mermaids are real. The bad news: They are now extinct. #bpcares”