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Integrated Marketing Communication

Marketing communication plan

(British Petroleum a case analysis)

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Date:

Academic Year:

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Sr no Contents Page No


1 Brief introduction to the report 4

2 Context Analysis 6

2.1 Internal audits 6

2.2 External audits 7

3 SMART marketing objectives of the proposed communication plan 11

4 Proposed marketing communication strategies 13

5 Implementation and action plan 15

6 Control and evaluation of the proposal 17

7 Budget sheet 18

9 References 19

1. Brief introduction to the report:

Over the last decade or so British Petroleum has faced a lot of criticism in regards to the

issues that is have risen due to issues revolving around the corporate social responsibities

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Academic Year: Page 2


(CSR), these issues have and led to BR facing social agendas and leading to poor public

opinion and a negative PR, which has eventually questioned the social standing of the

business.

The role of BP is often highlighted in stark contrast to companies that have been accused of

lobbying intensively against efforts to mitigate the risk of global warming. Alongside

heated debates about global environmental issues and corporate responsibilities in that

respect, the last decade has also witnessed the emergence of a potentially much wider and

broadening social agenda, oftentimes framed by the concepts of corporate social

responsibility (CSR) or corporate citizenship.

With the help of this report the researcher, would explore the different challenges BP faced

over the years and most significant it would help and recommend BP with an appropriate

marketing communication plan, that would eventually aim to uplift the social status of BP

in the market today.

This report is prepared on the basis of the secondary information that is available from

various secondary sources, which includes official publications, market intelligence,

journals, press reports etc.

The entire proposed marketing communication plan would be structure as per the COSTAC

framework and can be best studied with the help of the illustration below:

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A generic framework for marketing communication planning

Source: DSH digital Shanghai

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2. Context analysis:

This section of the report would aim to best understand the cause of the problem that

occurred at BP and with the help of this section the report would be able to set a well

define and structure set of marketing communications aims and objectives that would

address the situation promptly. The main of the situation analysis would be to answer the

following set of questions with great clarity:

• What exactly went wrong?

• Who takes the responsibities and accountability for what?

• How does this situation affect British Petroleum?

The report aims to answer these questions with the help of various internal and external

analyses as discussed in the sub-sections below:

2.1 Internal Audits:

What exactly went wrong?

The internal audit section of the report would aim to address the following questions that

would look into answering the question of what exactly went wrong, this question is

answered as below:

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During the post-war period, the world has witnessed momentous increases in the value and

power of transnational companies. The emergence of global economic integration,

commonly framed in the concept of globalisation, has also helped draw new attention to

issues that transgress companies’ traditional concerns and responsibilities. Over the last

decades, the business agenda has expanded by the inclusion of environmental issues, most

notably the threat of global climate change, and more recently, growing concerns over the

social impact of international commerce. The latter has brought to the fore increasing

attention to social problems such as human rights violations, corruption, and transparency.

Demands for openness and reporting on this ‘triple-bottom-line’ - economic, environmental

and social performance - have particular relevance for companies that operate in countries

and regions with poor governance and human rights records, such as BP, whose operations

and activities span across six continents.

In brief, BP has received moderate negative attention on CSR issues, at least compared to

other transnational like Shell, BP has in recent years received growing recognition in terms

of its positive contributions to the CSR agenda, by demonstrating leadership, and in some

ways acting as a catalyst for changes in the oil industry as a whole. For instance, several

NGOs have publicly acknowledged BP for being among the first oil transnational to

endorse a human rights policy, for its early position on the climate change issue, its exit

from the Global Climate Coalition, and for setting new standards in areas such as

transparency. That said, the following sections outlines in some detail incidents and

accusations raised against BP in relation to macro-CSR issues

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Who takes the responsibities and accountability for what?

The key responsibility for the situation at BP is the management.

How does this situation affect British Airways?

The situation has led to a lot of negative publicity for BP, reflecting as unethical traders.

2.2 External Audits:

BP is one of the largest vertically integrated oil and gas companies in the world. The

company’s

Operations primarily include the exploration and production of gas and crude oil, as well as

the marketing and trading of natural gas, power, and natural gas liquids. BP is

headquartered in London, the UK and employs about 80,300 people. The company recorded

revenues of $239,272 million in the financial year ended December 2009 (FY2009), a

decrease of 33.7% compared with FY2008. The operating profit of the company was

$28,152 million in FY2009, a decrease of 24.1% compared with FY2008. The net profit

was $16,578 million in FY2009, a decrease of 21.6% compared with FY2008.

The external macro and micro environment had a big effect on the functionality and overall

operations of the business, which led to loss of consumer and significantly stakeholder

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confidence on British Petroleum deliverables. The negative publicity for BP did well for the

competition and they gained on competitive advantage, winning the trust and business of

customers that were long loyal to BP. In order to best understand the influence of micro,

macro environment and the threats that could possibly be an area of concern for BP in the

near future can be best analyzed by employing one of best market analysis tool, which is

conducting the SWOT analysis for BP,

SWOT analysis:

Strengths Weaknesses

Oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico: BP is
• Dominant market position Oil spill in
the Gulf of Mexico: BP has a strong involved in one of the worst environmental
market position. It is one of the disasters in the US. In April 2010, an
world’s leading oil companies on the
explosion occurred on the Transocean's rig
basis of market capitalization and
proved reserves. The company is the which was drilling and exploration well on
largest producer of oil, the second BP operated license. The
largest producer of gas and the
rig was located approximately 41 miles
largest overall producer of
hydrocarbons in the UK. BP is the offshore Louisiana on Mississippi Canyon
largest producer of oil and gas in block 252
North America
• Vertically integrated operations
• Vertically integrated operations
• Explosion in the Texas refinery
Explosion in the Texas refinery
• Wide geographical presence Violation

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• Wide geographical presence of tax laws in Turkey

Opportunities Threats

• Acquisition of Devon Energy’s assets • Saturation of resources in the North Sea

Brazil, Azerbaijan, and the US • Instability in some oil-producing

deepwater regions

• Gulf of Mexico • Environmental regulations

• Oil and gas exploration projects Risks • Risks related to exploration and

related to exploration and production production activities

• Investments in the alternative energy • business Threat of a takeover

activities

o business

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3 SMART objectives of the proposed communication plan:

The report keeping the findings from the internal and external audit above has proposed

marketing communication objectives that are based on the SMART framework of setting

marketing objectives these are discussed as below:

S- Specific:

The first object of the proposed marketing plan is being very specific to the problem, which

in this case would be:

• Working very closely with the R&D and the other teams like HR, Testing etc

ensuring that all the compliances are met regularly

M-Measurable:

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The second objective of the research would be to measure the changes and the

improvements. This objective is as follows:

• Addressing the general public with the correct and true scenario of the blunder that

occurred.

A- Achievable:

The objectives that are set by the business are completely achievable, and is something that

the staff and management at BP can achieve easily over a set period of time.

R- Realistic and Relevant:

The objective that are set to achieve the desired success from the marketing communication

plan should have objectives that that not only relevant but are very much realistic to achieve

over the pre-define period of time with the available internal and external resources.

Keeping this into consideration the next object is:

• Emphasizing on the current state of operation for BP, emphasizing on the achieved

objectives in different spheres of the business

T- Time based:

All objectives set should always be formulated to be achieved and the outcomes delivered

within a well defined time, this makes the objective more challenging and compelling to
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achieve, like in the case of BP the objective discussed and described above are set to be

reached within a time frame of one year.

Further to this the main audience to these objectives and the outcomes becoming a success

are discussed as internal and external audiences as below:

Internal audience:

• The global workforce of BP

• Senior management of BP, at country and territory levels

• shareholders

External audience:

• customers

• media, environment and human resources organisations.

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4 Proposed marketing communication strategies:

The word strategy originates from the Greek literature where the meaning stands to be the

art of leading an army as cited in the work done by Obolensky and Sadlers (1998). In the

case of this marketing communication plan it would refer to the tools and tactics that would

be used and implemented to achieve the long and short term business objectives for British

Petroleum.

Pull strategy:

The pull strategy would always aimed to target the end user customer, and this strategy

processes to achieve the objectives through stages like generating levels of awareness, and
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information exchange, it principally aims to influence and change the attitude of both the

internal and external audiences, and generates momentum in the process of enquiring and

experimenting, eventually leading to repetitive purchase behavior (Fill, 2002)

BA with this strategy could:

• Direct marketing

• Use internet as a medium of bidirectional communication

Push Strategy:

The push strategy concentrates on creating some additional values through value activities,

these activities eventually leads to a repetitive purchase behavior among customers (Fill,

2002), in the case of BP this strategy can be employed as below:

• Campaigns that would enrich and push public relations

• Capitalize on using media as a communication channel

Profile Strategy:

BP could employ this strategy by:

• Regular media presence through press releases and other forms of communication.

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• Getting involved in local support activities, encouraging campaigns, organisations that

work in support of green environment.

The above discussed strategies have their own unique advantages associated with them, and

with BP employing these strategies, differences in performance and customer attitude

would be profound and visible.

5 Implementation and action plan:

Promotional mix:

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• Comprehensive media relations that are highly visible: BP should create clear

communication with both its internal external customers ensuring everyone is clear of

the businesses mission as well as vision

o To develop media advocacy

The strategy employed would be a mixture of pull, push and profile strategy. The employed

tactic would be setting a new information based website, which would act as a channel to

interact with media reporters and also act as a face to issue regular updates about the

business.

• Paid media campaigns: the strategy that would be applied would be a mixture of push

and profile strategy, media channels based on GRP, which is based on reach and

frequency are selected and the different channels for media exposure.

Organizing Media-Press releases:

BP should continually organize to have press release to ensure they have good media

relation with the key spokespersons in the industry. This would also act like a positive

communication channel for BP, ensuring that everyone is aware of the ethical standards

followed at BP

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6 Control and evaluation of the proposed plan:

Measurement and continual evaluation is one of the key characteristics of any plan, it is

very important that the proposed pan for marketing communication is evaluated and the

required changes made regularly and promptly to ensure that the there is no deviation from

the main objectives of the proposed plan. The control and evaluation for this proposed plan

is as discussed below:

Process measures:

• Ensuring that the communication programs are executed on time and within budget

• Checking media content analysis, this would check for accuracy, impact, reach and

balance

• Checking for stakeholder engagement, business partnership and response from the

influencers

• Analysing and studying media influence and impression

Outcome measurement:

• Ensuring that proper plans are in place in regards to issues relating to environmental

concerns

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• Taking regular employee feedbacks and conducting HR audits in order to make sure

that the workforce is efficient and complacent

• Monitoring customer feedback and developmental suggestions and bringing them to

implementation at regular intervals.

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7 Budget Sheet:

Total budget allocation £15million for the marketing communication Campaign:

Marketing communication Proposed budget Total

activity

Media relations £1.5 million £ 1.5 million

Paid Media campaign TV: £5.8million £ 5.8 million

Radio: £0.75 million

Print: £ 2million

Outdoor: £0.5 million

Online: £1 million

Media relations £0.7 million £0.7 million

Working with other £1.5 million £1.5 million

organisations

Measurement and £1.25 million £1.25 million

evaluation

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8 References:

• Fill C (2002), Marketing Communications: Contexts, Strategies and Applications,

Harlow, Pearson Education Limited.

• Obolensky N (1998), Strategy Formation Models; In: Sadler P, Eds, Management

Consultancy: a handbook for the best practice, London: Kogan Page Limited.

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