BP Fixes the Online Marketing Fight (And so can you!)

 

BP’s online marketing budget has grown some in recent weeks. Ok, it’s grown considerably. Like the difference between 1920s American youth and today’s American youth. It’s grown that much.

And search engine users should be wary.

So what if it grew? These days everyone’s beefing up their online marketing budget.

Not this big this fast. The disastrous state of unnecessary affairs in the Gulf Coast has sunk BP in a bottomless PR nightmare, and the oil giant is exploring every means possible for cleaning up its sullied image.

BP CEO Tony Hayward has become an unwelcome staple of morning, noon and evening newscasts, as he waxes poetic about his company’s supposedly earnest efforts to rectify the mess it caused in the Gulf of Mexico.

When Hayward isn’t on our televisions, he’s on our computers starring in online commercials that accompany the most popular videos on YouTube (Last week, I was digitally assaulted by the man while getting my bi-weekly dose of Numa Numa. That ain’t right at all).

Now, BP is seizing our search engine results pages in an attempt to disperse the black pall lingering over its name. Search for “BP” or “Oil Spill” or “Gulf Disaster” or even “BP is a Terribly Silly Company” and the top sponsored link is invariably paid for by BP. They’ve become dangerously ubiquitous.

Fine, so they bought every search term imaginable – so what?

BP has every right to spend its way out of this mess, but one must question the misleading manner in which it’s proceeding. Those ads that show up on every BP-related search term, well, they promise this: “Info about the Gulf of Mexico Spill Learn More about How BP is Helping.”

Thus, those searching for information pertinent to the spill won’t immediately see  a news story. They won’t see the blog of some impassioned environmentalist or that of some corporate watchdog.

They’ll find BP telling everyone how much it cares. And for almost every search imaginable – particularly those with negative connotations. Search “BP sucks one” and guess what you get? Yup. Information straight from the oil-spraying source.

So how much dough is BP forking out for all these crazy search terms?

A ton. Like more than it would have cost to purchase an effective emergency valve in the first place. This because such ominpresent SERP positioning doesn’t come cheaply.

Scott Slatin, an analyst for New York search engine marketing firm Rivington, told ABC News that by his estimates BP’s Pay-Per-Click (PPC) accounts on Google, Bing and Yahoo! likely cost the company in excess of $10,000 per day. All to win the bidding battles for every vital search term and phrase related to the monumental oil spill.

10 grand? You crazy. No one else is bidding on terms like “BP can choke and die”.

You’d be surprised. But while the individual cost-per-click is likely low (BP has no competition for most phrases), the sheer mass of phrases BP is bidding on makes Slatin’s estimates plausible.

Even so, that kind of money is obviously negligible for a company that reported $14B in profits in 2009, and this in a down year that saw profits suffer a mind-boggling 45-percent decline from the previous year. Do THAT math.

So BP’s loaded and is tossing a few dimes at the problem. Money well spent, right?

The question isn’t merely whether this is money spent wisely – even paying $100,000 per day on PPC would be money well spent given BP’s desperate need for crisis management – but whether it’s entirely ethical.

BP’s deep pockets afford it an insurmountable online advertising advantage, and as the majority of search engine users likely cannot distinguish sponsored results from organic results (sadly, it’s true), it’s debatable whether search engines should be playing ball with BP, no matter how much they’re willing to pay for these clicks.

Search engines are historically liberal in what phrases they accept bids on, but one wonders if that shouldn’t change in the face of tragedy.

Is it good money for the search engines? Sure.

Is it sound PR strategy for BP to bulk up its digital marketing budget?  Certainly.

But what about search engine users – are they getting justice? When they seek out truthful information about the Gulf disaster, to learn how things are progressing (if at all), and unwittingly end up on BP’s corporate blog, are they being treated fairly?

Because the deal between search engines and search engine users has always been this: users trust the search engines to deliver the most accurate results, and search engines are rewarded when users click on the paid ads. But when those users aren’t buying anything, when they are shopping for information and not cars or tennis shoes, should they be taken advantage of? Do the rules of that deal still apply?

So what can you take from this?

Well, if you or your company finds itself in a regrettable public relations quandary, take control of the situation by taking control of the search engines. Do what BP did: Set up a blog that portrays you or your company as a God-given savior, and then buy every search term imaginable. It won’t matter that curious people don’t get the veracious information they seek. What matters is that your ass is covered. Even if it costs a few grand.