The document outlines a proposed marketing plan for BP in response to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill crisis. It analyzes BP's current challenges and stakeholders, and develops a strategy to improve BP's public image through a public relations campaign targeting subcontractors, collaboration with NGOs and key opinion leaders, and community outreach programs in Nigeria. The plan estimates a total cost of $5.9 billion but projects a high return on investment of 96% through increased share prices and revenues.

1. Reason for selecting BP for Term paper
One of the major recent shocks to a big corporation to its green image is for the case of BP.
After years of projecting the new logo and the new image as green, BP received an extremely
negative image. Its challenging to have a new marketing campaign when everyone around
has already marked it as Green Washing. I worked in Oil and Gas Industry from last 7 years
and believe that this industry is too complex and hence offer more challenges.
As managers, we are supposed to handle shocks such as these and derive the companies from
negative image to positive image during these difficult times. I believe I can learn the most
by analyzing and putting forward the arguments in the most challenging situation.
Also, one of the biggest take away from the sustainable marketing course for me was –
“Sustainable Marketing is all about the Business Operations especially Supply Chain and not
plain Advertisement campaign”. Hence, I have tried to focus on Business Operations in my
paper.

2. Table of Contents
I. Abstract
II. Mission, Vision and target of the Marketing plan
III. Development of the Marketing Plan
IV. Marketing Plan
V. Implementation Plan
VI. Communication Plan
VII. Appendix
a) Expense Estimation
b) WACC
c) ROI
d) Thank You BP campaign of Green Peace

3. I. Abstract
In April 2010, BP was struck with one of the worst accident in the history – The deepwater
horizon crisis. All the previous efforts of green washing have been washed away with the real
time crisis. Its share has dipped by 40% and it is looming with costly US government
sanctions, NGO backlash and general US public boycott of downstream operations.
Oil & Gas is a unique industry in the sense that it has very little product differentiation and
flow of products from source (crude oil) to end user (gasoline) is continuous in nature. In
such a scenario the only differentiation is the opinions of the technical and legal experts. This
paper takes this unique property of Oil and Gas industry into consideration while putting
forward the marketing plan for BP.
Various important stakeholders for Oil and Gas industry have been mapped with reference to
their influence and possible support to BP.
$5.9 bn seems to be a big cost on the face of it for a marketing campaign, but the increase in
value for BP from this marketing plan is enormous. The marketing plan has an overall ROI of
96%.

4. II. Mission
The proposed marketing plan aims to handle the various challenges being faced by BP
currently.
Vision
To become leader in Oil and Gas industry for sustainable business operations
Target of the proposed Marketing Plan
To generate higher returns on investment along with sustainable development of the company
Challenges being faced ( BP Strategy needs)
A. General Challenges
Even if the Oil leak crisis would not have been there we continue to face the following risks
in our business operations.
1. Managing resources capital
a) Capital Investments in our exploration, distribution, refining and retailing.
b) Intellectual Capital Pool / IP rights for new process technologies.
2. Accessing capital markets
a) Commodity Pricing – Trading of the products across the life cycle
b) Supplies Pricing – Leases for Exploration
3. Globalization and international operations
a) Remote Locations – Operations offshore and remote fields in Africa
b) Different Time zones across world – Problems in integrated communication
c) Regulations and legal issues of different countries – Problems in framing universal
company policies
4. Mergers and Acquisitions among customers and competitors – Increased B2B
competition
5. Deployment of new technologies – How to coup up investment in long term oriented
projects (more than 20 years usually)
6. Complexity in the industry can often give rise to inefficiencies and increased cost as
there cannot be any universal standard for operations on absolute scale.
B. Current / Recent Challenges
If we analyze the reason for the recent Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill crisis, following are the
most important and biggest reasons
1. Subcontractor’s Failure to monitor and act on warnings (No concrete action on a leak
spotted weak before the blowout due to Faulty Cementing)
2. Subcontractor’s Unsafe Operation (No pretesting of communication, hydraulic and power
lines)
Though our company is responsible for putting the subcontractors on board but the main
reason for the accident were some of the faulty and low quality operations standards of the
subcontractors.

5. III. Development of the Marketing Plan
Research and Analysis for study of situation and future developments
1. All the key stakeholders identified through stakeholder mapping
2. Market Sizing for all the stakeholders done
3. Statistical analysis done for no. of data points required to get 95% confidence limit of the
results about the customers of BP in US.
2 Focus Groups Interviews
with diverse group of
people
16 Indepth Interviews with
Experts and KOL
1024 surve data points
among general
stakeholders of BP
Current Stakeholder Mapping and motivations - Below give chart shows the major
stakeholder for BP in the current scenario.
Technical Media
Experts KOL
Legal
Experts
Environmentalist
Business NGO
Power
Groups
Poor Citizens / Employees
Nature
Interest

6. Stakeholders Motivations
Technical/Legal Experts/KOL Career Progression and generating business by
alliances with corporations such as BP
Employees Stable and Profitable company (BP in our case)
Media / NGO Constant feed of news and binding eyeballs
Citizens/Nature/Environmentalists Protection of environment, increased usage of
alternative energy
Poor in Nigeria Economic development
PEST Analysis for Oil & Gas Industry (including BP)
1. The Political scene in US is against Oil companies for their mischief’s.
2. Despite recession, US consumer spending on Oil & Gas is still intact. BP is highly
profitable and its business operations are still intact.
3. There is an increased backlash against Oil & Gas companies in US
4. Technology for Non renewable sector is developing very fast. This can be major threat to
oil industry as a whole.
SWOT Analysis for BP
Strength Weakness
1. Bad Media coverage from last 4 monts
1. Strong partnership with KOL / NGO
2. Poor image trackrecord with KOL/
2. Strong cash position (after $20 bn
NGO and no US Govt. support as
Eschrow Fund)
provided to Exxon during the leak
SWOT Analysis
Opportunity Threat
1. Subcontractors also involved in accidents 1. Strong backlash by US Government
2. Since, BP has already seen bottom of
share prices, one time high investment in 2. Big Oil giants of US may lobby
Alternative energy research against BP with local media

7. Key Leverage Points (KLP)
1. Strong Cash Position can be used for lobbying with Government
2. Public/Environmentalist attention can be diverted to subcontractor’s faults
3. If there are further deterioration of public image, US government can act on BP
for heavy penalties.
4. Legal KOL will be useful in later stage of litigations
Marketing Strategy development for BP
Various options on the selection of NGO/KOL and collaboration with the stakeholder have
been analyzed and following are the recommendations
1. There can be only sequential interaction with some of the stakeholders. For example the
General customers can be engaged only after successful interaction with the technical and
legal experts
2. Different stakeholder groups have different motives
3. Our Action plan (Marketing plan) should satisfy the needs of all stakeholders in phase
wise manner
4. Any Marketing plan should have good financial returns ( ROI>WACC)

8. IV. Marketing Plan.
1. Public Campaign on various fronts
Public campaign to elaborate that BP has taken strong actions action against the real
culprits in order to
a) Engage Key Opinion Leaders (KOL) to reach a consensus with them through
meaningful dialogue
b) Put legal claims against Sub vendors
c) Publicize the legal claims
d) Engage top Advertising agencies to do a public campaign against
i. Operations Contractor, Halliburton1 (who completed cementing of the final
production casing string)
ii. Rig Owner, Transocean (whose blow out preventers (BOP)failed)
e) There are other parties who may be responsible but focus on only 2subcontratros
as people will be confused and mark BP campaign as information poisoning by BP.
Hence, we will not put the other parties in picture.
1. M-I Swaco, the mud monitoring contractor
2. Weatherford, did not took enough safety precautions in inserting of pipes
f) Publicize that BP took approval for all the operations from MMS (Mineral
Management Services), the approving authority. Also, BP was fully complied with
all the safety operations. It was the contractors who missed on their obligations.
2. Collaboration with NGO and KOL’s
Identifying and allying with top 3 biggest NGO’s and reputed industry bodies
a) Involve top Management to show solid commitment to build up alliance
b) Fund their programs, research and expenses
c) Convince them about the faults of the sub vendors
d) Build consensus among experts
3. Generating public support after crisis.
Recent news article2 shows that some people are still don’t blame everything on BP and
are willing to do meaningful task out of Government Bureaucratic setup.
Buy 1 KL of Gasoline and educate 1 child in Nigeria
How it is relevant to Oil and Gas customer and Industry – There is wide spread smuggling
and illegal usage of Crude oil in Nigeria. The local people try to refine the crude oil on their
own in very crude and dangerous form. Most of the people involved in this trade are
1
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/30/halliburton-may-be-culpri_n_558481.html
2
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/07/dispatch-from-the-gulf-oil-spill-breaking-the-law-to-save-the-gulf.
php (accessed on 3rd August, 2010)

9. teenagers as they are less averse to the risk of using open fire. One of the biggest reasons
behind this problem is the lack of education among the people due to which they don’t have
other employment avenues. If the customer in US can donate money for education of people
in Nigeria, they will be not be diverted to illegal activities related to Oil and gas.
Buy 1 KL to
educate 1
Nigeria Effect on
Children customer
More Diversifying of
Better Ability to
Employment Nigeria
Education participate in
avenues Economy
Visit of benefited children to US ( Not Just Oil Campaign)
In addition to the education in Nigeria, BP will take these children to US on visit to create
intense media/NGO Campaign.
As we can see from the diagram above the most effective method for BP is to coordinate with
the Technical and legal experts in stage 1 and NGO in later stages.
Ist Stage
Partner with Technical Experts and Legal Experts.
Engage Environmentalists and Key Opinion leaders in Media
Empower Employees to promote company image
2nd Stage
Monitor continuously the citizens and competitors for thier
inappropriate activites for BP
Engage environmentalist in futursitics dialogue and events
3rd Stage
Collaborate with NGO to spread good word about BP and
help in restructuring business operations

10. Effect of Marketing Plan on stakeholders
After implementation of Business Plan, the positioning of the stakeholders can be shown in
the following manner.
Employees
Technical
Experts
Poor in
Nigeria KOL
Legal
Experts
Media /
Competitors NGO
Citizens
Support
Environmentalist
Influence
Status
Stakeholders Before Marketing After Marketing
Plan Plan
Technical/Legal Experts/KOL Negative View about Partner of BP
BP
Employees Frustrated and Insecure Motivated and
Confident
Media / NGO Spreading Poison Engaged with BP
against BP
Citizens/Nature/Environmentalists Scared and Skeptical of Engaged with BP
BP
Poor in Nigeria Harming BP assets and Empowered by BP by
interests by stealing and education
smuggling crude oil

11. Implementation Strategy of Marketing Campaign
1. Opinion Generation
a) Key Opinion leaders
b) Technical Experts
2. Damage Control Activities
a) Legal and exposing contractors campaign
b) Collaborating with other industry members for prevention of backlash from
sub-contractors
3. Leadership in Industry
a) Industry Lobby for indemnification from Subcontractors mistakes
b) Pushing KOL of legal space for the same.
4. Preparing for the next phase
a) New terms of contracts with the Sub- contractors
b) Improvements in Vendor selection process
c) Improvements in other components of Supply Chain
Time line Chart
External Partnering with NGO’s
Publicizing Legal Actions against
Subcontractors
Industry Lobbying with Other industry Members against Backlash
Level
Taking KOL into confidence
Internal
Task Force of Top Management to overview Marketing Campaign
3 months 6 months 9 months 12 months
Time Period

12. Expenses
Each stage has a cost associated with it. But these cost components are negligible if we just
consider the impact of the negative publicity which currently the company is having in the
current negative environment about the company. The impact of the crisis is both within the
downstream retail channel as well as with the upstream operations.
Total Expense = $5.9bn (Details given in appendix)
Identification of NGO
Based on the various parameters identified through our research as mentioned previously,
NGO B is selected (Creative Data)
NGO D
Relevance to BP customers
NGO C
Relevance to Oil Industry
Relevance to Business
NGO B Operations
Relevance to KOL
NGO A
0 5 10 15 20
Target NGO
Partner
Gains from the new Marketing Campaign
1. Increase in Share Price3 - After the crisis, BP stock price dropped to $33 from $62. Now
the market Cap of the firm is only $91 bn.
Hence, the total loss = (91/33*(62-33))bn = $ 78 bn
Even if BP manages to get back 25% of the loss in the market cap, then the total gain for
the company = 78/4 = $ 19 bn
2. Gain in Revenues – Since, Oil & Gas is a commodity product, there will be
3
Drop in BP Share Price
http://newtermlifeinsurance.net/bp-stock-price-drop-since-oil-spell-begins/
http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/investing/bp-stock-plunges/19510758/

13. negligible effects of the marketing campaign on upstream operations. Most of the effect
will be felt in the downstream operations. Hence, following are the estimates from the
Marketing department in 3 possible scenarios
Highly
Successful
Successful
Moderately
Future Successful
Scenarios
Failure Failure
NPV of the project is positive = 5.7 bn USD
ROI of the project is very high = 96%
(Calculations given in appendix)
Implementation of the Marketing Plan in the whole Value Chain
Michael Porter Diamond diagram can be used to demonstrate the effect of sustainability
initiative on the overall profit margins for the business. There are 2 types of activities
highlighted by Michael porter
1. Primary Activities - Activities that are directly concerned with creating and delivering a
product (e.g. component assembly); and packaging
2. Support Activities – Activities which are not directly involved in production, but may
increase effectiveness or efficiency (e.g. human resource management).

14. Primary Activity Description
Inbound logistics  Increase the proportion of long term
leases in the overall sourcing
 Cost of receiving, storing, and carrying
inventory will be lower
 Transportation scheduling stability will
reduce logistics cost
 Long term contracts with pipeline and

15. shipping tanker companies will ensure
stability in freight charges
Operations  Use organic packaging for lubricants
 Increase audit standards for Sub
contractors for all the project by using
the highest standards of OHSA and HSE
 Appoint 3rd party audits for
subcontractors works
 Environment and safety risk reduction
will reduce the insurance cost for
operations.
Outbound logistics  Loyalty program will reduce the cost of
distribution, warehousing and manpower.
Marketing and sales  Collaborate with the NGO, technical
expert and media to gain greater mind
share
Service  Customer service and understanding of
his needs and concerns will increase
Loyalty
 Higher loyalty will help in introduction
of premium products, which results in
higher margins

16. Secondary Activity Description
Procurement  Liaison with local governments of the
major oil producing nations such as
Middle East and Africa will enable lower
Exploration lease acquisition cost.
Human Resource  Recruiting will be exclusively based on
Management the local population profile in all the
three components of value chain – raw
material sourcing, processing and sales.
 Increased training of staff will increase
productivity per person.
Technology  Increased role of IT and banking
Development technology will reduce the retail fuel
stations and Oil & Gas distribution cost.
Infrastructure  It is easy to plan out infrastructure
spending for stable demand and safe
operations
 This will reduce the cost of funding the
project (because cost of funding
increases if the risk is lower)

17. V. Communication Strategy
1. Collaborate with Greenpeace (Thank you BP Campaign)
In 2008, BP was awarded the “Emerald Paintbrush4” award and BP was nominee for the
award again in 2009. Hence, BP image had been tarnished a lot by Greenpeace in last
couple of years. BP will show its commitment to alternative energies by investing $3bn in
Alternative energies. This will provide a greater push to the BP’s image. Our lobbyers in
Green peace will force it to go to the public with new campaign on – “Thank You BP”.
This campaign will highlight that BP had emerged stronger out of the crisis and the new
BP is really credible.
Also the campaign will feature the new $2bn investment in to making the supply chains
and business operations more sustainable in near immediate future.
Lobby with Greenpeace to include the recent spending in both Sustainable operations and
Alternative Energy into total spending into new initiatives ($2bn +$ 3bn = $5bn).
Greenpeace to be forced by lobbying to come up with new advertisement that BP is now
spending 22% instead of just 7 % on green initiatives. Hence, they want to thanks BP for
accepting their voice
(Please see attachment for the advertisement campaign)
2. In this campaign, Books, study material and other aid material will be collected at the
retail fuel stations of BP. These books will be later distributed to the African (Nigeria in
our case) for distribution.
4
GreenPeace Award for Green Washing by companies
http://weblog.greenpeace.org/makingwaves/archives/2008/12/bp_wins_coveted_emerald_paintb.html

18. More than Just Oil Campaign

19. VI. Appendix
1. Expenses
S. No. Expense Item Estimated Basis of Cost Estimation
(m $)
1 Internal Mobilization 2000 BP cost estimation by top
resources for sustainability in Management Accounting department
Supply chain and business
operations for OSHA
(Occupational Safety and
Health Administration)
2 Survey and Research 10 Average of Quotations from Ogilvy
and Mather, Lintas, Publicis and
other PR agencies
3 Organizing events of Key 50 Estimation for sum of cost of all
Opinion Leaders of HSE possible events given by Marketing
(Health, Safety and Department
Environment related) in Oil
& Gas Industry
4 Facilitating unaccounted 200 PR and Corporate Relations
activities of Key Opinion department estimation
Leaders in Oil & Gas
Industry
5 Cost of lobbying with other 5 Joints Events and Visits with
industry Members to build Members for regulatory Authorities
multilateral agreements on
Offshore drillings and
explorations in future
6 Cost of Legal Fight against 100 Estimation by Legal Department and
subcontractors other top notch legal firms
7 Advertising and publication 100 Marketing department Estimation
cost to make people more
aware about HSE initiatives
and record of BP
8 Cost of sponsoring 50 Cost of Identification, liason and
NGO/Industry Body events / collaborating in events and
Activities to showcase BP campaigns
track record on HSE
9 Cost of Collaborating / 300 PR and Corporate Strategy
Accounted / Secret Activities Department Estimation
with big Media Houses to
defame Subcontractors and

20. clean up the image of BP
10 Contingency and risk 100 McKinsey / BCG / AT Kearney cost
Management cost estimation
11 Extra Strategic Losses due to 3000 E&Y / PwC / KPMG and internal
investment into Alternative strategy department estimation
Energies and other initiatives
Total 5915
2. WACC (Weighted Average Cost) of BP
Where:
Re = cost of equity
Rd = cost of debt
E = market value of the firm's equity
D = market value of the firm's debt
V=E+D
E/V = percentage of financing that is equity
D/V = percentage of financing that is debt
Tc = corporate tax rate
We will use WACC5 to determine the Net Present Value (NPV) of our marketing project
5
WACC calculations
mdi.typepad.com/blog/files/exxonmobil_energizing_change.ppt

21. 3. ROI (Return on Investment Calculations) considering all possible scenarios
Assumptions for simplifications of Calculations – Due to lack of time and resources for
research, I have made the following assumptions for ROI calculations
a. Downstream Revenue ( from 2009 Income Statement)
b. Assuming this return will be realised in 3 years, a year hereafter
c. Assuming 50% of BP revenues are from Downstream opearation which will
have the real effect of marketing campaign
Scenario Analysis Highly Moderately Failure
successful Sucessful
Probability 20 70 10
Expenses in each scenario 5.9 5.9 5.9
in bn USD
Increase in Revenue in Each 20 10 -10
Scenario
%age Increase
Down stream Revenues 123 123 123
Absolute increase over revenue 147.6 135.3 110.7
base of 246 bn USD
Net Gain in each scenario 18.7 6.4 -18.2
Absolute Return 3.74 4.48 -1.82
ROI Calculations
Total Return on the Marketing 6.4
expense
Return per year 2.1
WACC 5.9
NPV (year 1 Cash Flow) 2.0
NPV (year 2 Cash Flow) 1.9
NPV (year 3 Cash Flow) 1.8

22. Total NPV 5.7
ROI (%) 96.4
4. Green Peace ( Thank you BP campaign)
Attachment as PPT file