Oil spill search results in Google
When it comes to getting in front of a crisis and addressing it head on, there are many things a beleaguered corporation like BP could do. Address the press frequently, put out new TV/print/radio ads, and offer a mea culpa or two. But in this digital world, people want to search out information on the oil spill, and they go online, entering terms like “oil spill” or “gulf disaster” to seek updates. And BP has anticipated these searches, seeing in them an opportunity to get ahead of the story. When the previously mentioned search terms are entered, the first results is a sponsored search result from BP, where you can “Learn more about how BP is helping” (see image at left).
ABCNews, which first reported on BP’s search term P.R. offensive, mentions Google and Yahoo as search engines where BP has bought search terms, but our quick, informal study reveals that BP is also the first, “sponsored” listing in Ask.com and Bing. What is also interesting is that BP seems to have only purchased search terms in English. Visit www.google.com/es, for example, and type “vertido de petróleo”, and you see no sponsored listings whatsoever (same goes for www.google.fr and “déversement accidentel de pétrole”). Clearly, BP is trying to win the hearts and minds of English-speaking internet users.
Oh, and although BP’s sponsored listing is first search result listed, you will also find plenty of other sponsored listings on the right hand side of your Google page- from organizations such as MidweekPolitics, RepowerAmerica, and AlaskaOceans.org. Let the search term P.R. wars begin.
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