A perfect example of using Google Adwords for positive PR.
What BP have done is invested in keywords such as “BP”, “Florida Gulf Coast”, “leak” and “oil spill” and they have put an ad against these keywords.
This is represented with a positive message about how BP is helping the clean-up.
This, for obvious reasons, is fairly amusing and ironic since it was BP who caused the oil spill.
But in the world of PR it might not look great if the ad text wrote:
BP is investing in cleaning up its environmental disaster that it has caused due to negligence, click here to see how we are spending multi-millions in appeasing governments and the media….
“Learn more about how BP is helping”…
While this might make sense as a cautious PR strategy, casting a wide net means that BP will be associated with unrelated and sometimes ironic topics.
That decision overlooks “bp” also being an abbreviation of blood pressure, or that for anyone looking for information about fixing a basement problem, perhaps BP can help.
This broad match strategy caused BP’s ad to appear on 400+ keywords they had not appeared on before, including:
- bp 1000s battery
- systolic bp
- China oil company
- Environment tshirt
- Environment friendly cars
- Florida gulf coast vacation home rental
- Gulf coast weddings
- How can I help the environment
- Repair roof leaks
- Spa leak
- Minolta bp 200
Google search showing BP's PR campaign - unfortunately it is not predicted this will work on residents of the Gulf Coast....
They sure weren’t buying the phrase “Alaska oil spill” last month. Appearing on “spill response plan” allows them to reach an audience and craft the message they want to share. This also leads to an unfortunately ironic sponsored result for “spill proof gas can.”
This is not BP’s first time advertising on search engines. BP has long advertised on industry keywords like “alternate energies” and “natural gas supplier.” Those keywords, though, have been dumped from their campaign.
BP halted advertising on more than 1500 relevant keywords and updated the ad on 100 of those it kept, shifting all search advertising attention to damage control.
Nearly every search result where BP appears ends with the same call to action. “Learn more about how BP is helping.”
The closest estimate to BP’s Adwords campaign results are that they are spending USD $60,000 per month and somewhere around 26,000 visitors.
reference
Tags: google news, search engine news
