When It’s All Blown Up – Beyond Crisis Communications.

The “disaster in the Gulf” has generated far more than sad deaths and leaking hydrocarbons – as if these are not enough. There was big-time yelling (did you see James Carville on TV yesterday?). Plenty of finger-pointing and blame-passing. Tremendous political pressure. And also, engineering challenges and potential triumphs when the leaks are stopped and the clean-up has been accomplished.

Looking back to the quiet times BL (Before Leak), you may find reading “Schumpeter” instructive. BL in this case is April 8, 2010, a couple of weeks before Deepwater Horizon blew up. The Schumpeter to whom I’m referring is the nom-de-plume of the regular Business editorializer for The Economist.

This Schumpeter wrote here about “Brand rehab.” He outlined two rules for successful crisis management:

First, the boss needs to take charge. This means sidelining corporate cluck-cluckers such as lawyers (who worry that any admission of guilt will lead to lawsuits) or financial officers (who obsess about the bottom line). It also means putting the survival of the company above personal considerations. Many of the most damaging crises, by contrast, have resulted from foot-dragging at the top.

The second rule is that crisis-racked firms should redouble their focus on their customers.

Now we’ve gone beyond the normal activities of crisis management, or crisis communications. In the case of the leaking well, all the stakeholders, from the crew and families of the sunken rig to the people who live and work along the shores of the eastern Gulf of Mexico, to company shareholders, to politicians, have been seriously affected.

It’s not like the Tiger Woods version of the problem which The Economist article actually addresses. It is much more serious for everyone, including BP and Halliburton (which are clients) and Transocean (which is not).

No company operating in the Western business world today will ever be free of intense scrutiny. And so much has been written, broadcast and screamed about what ought to be done, should have been done – including nationalization of the offshore wells and lynching oil company executives – well, Signalwriter isn’t going to add to the load.

Except to ask you to take the long view. (Hard but not impossible.) The real Schumpeter – Joseph Schumpeter, 1883-1950 – wrote:

Every piece of business strategy acquires its true significance only against the background of that process [of Creative Destruction] and within the situation created by it.

The creative destruction of this offshore drilling event is going to massively affect business and regulatory strategies. The event’s going to change companies and regulators too. Will the effects and the changes be revolutionary…or evolutionary? I don’t have the answer; I look forward to taking part in the dialogue.

PS: I certainly expect some readers will take me to the woodshed because I’m wiritng about branding and marketing in the same post as the tragic events which began with the April 20 explosion and fire that sank the Deepwater Horizon rig. So, dear readers: “There’s lots of copy on these subjects – Google it for yourselves.”

Boom Brands

I just got back from the Permian Basin and the joint is jumpin’. Barbara and I traveled up to Denver on US 87 through Amarillo and back to Houston through eastern New Mexico to Fort Stockton, then I-10 homeward. I don’t think we drove from one horizon to another without seeing at least one workover under way, sometimes more. Probably isn’t a single truck-mounted rig or vac truck west of the Mississippi that’s available for new work.

At yesterday’s close, oil is $127 a barrel and gas is $11.70/MMBtu. Activity is up everywhere, from the Permian Basin of west Texas to the Barnett Shale of north central Texas and eastern New Mexico as well as in the dusty Panhandle and the Anadarko Basin of western Oklahoma. With so much money on the table, you’re looking at recompletions, infill drilling, installation of secondary recovery projects – and everything else that’ll squeeze more oil and gas out of existing reservoirs.

For energy-related brand-watchers, it’s a boom time. It’s no surprise to see the “bigs” like Schlumberger, Halliburton and Baker Hughes.

But, e.g., I ran into a long-time colleague at OTC: Donna Smith is now Director of Communications for Stallion® Oilfield Services. Having thereby raised my consciousness – and thanks to her efforts for the company – I must have spotted every orange-and-black Stallion logo-ed vehicle and field office from Centerville (outbound) to Ozona (inbound). Key® Energy Services is out there in strength. There are hundreds more contractors and subs out in the field right now and you can play a sort of drive-by brand bingo on the roads out west.

Reading the papers, you’ll recognize that everyone is unhappy with the cost of oil or – more critically – the price of a gallon of gas at the corner station. I’d ask you, as marketers, to think about our “situation” from several, quite different angles.

First, the economic impact of oil and gas prices is creating opportunities for companies (and their employees) nationwide. That’s an economic good…as well as a particularly fine time for strongly branded firms with long-established customer relationships.

Second, this in an excellent period in which you should be building on and communicating the positives of your energy business brand. Let your stakeholders know if you are, in fact, doing well – and why. You’ll be creating a foundation of good brand impressions for the down cycle if and when it comes.

Third – and this is a personal note – maybe once time soon some oil company executive will stand up and ask Dianne Feinstein, “Just what, Senator, is your problem with the concept of profit?”

That’s enough for one weekend. All the best for a great June!

Any omissions or errors are my own. Photo © Jim Parkin Dreamstime.com