WHENDISASTERSSTRIKE

TABLE OF CONTENTS
OVERVIEW...............................5
TOURISM...............................15
WILDLIFE...............................23
RESTAURANTS.....................29
CELEBRITIES........................35
SOCIAL MEDIA......................41
ETHICS...................................49
SLIDE SHOW..........................53
OUR TEAM.............................63
REFERENCES........................69

KATRINA BASICS 6
Hurricane Katrina is not a new term for
any of us. According to the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
website, it was one of the strongest
storms to impact the coast of the United
States during the last 100 years. Katrina
caused widespread devastation along the
central Gulf Coast states of the US. Cities
such as New Orleans, LA, Mobile, AL, and
Gulfport, MS. When the storm made
landfall, it had a Category 3 rating on the
Saffir- Simpson Hurricane Scale--it
brought sustained winds of 100-140 miles
per hour--and stretched some 400 miles
across.
The physical effects of the storm were
disastrous throughout much of coastal
Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama, and
in fact life continues in a state of
disruption throughout the region nearly a
year later.
To look at some of the demographical
and other damages, we begin by looking
at the impact Hurricane Katrina had on
Louisiana.

7
Louisiana Synopsis
As reported in the U.S. Special Census,
Orleans Parish lost an estimated 278,833
residents as a consequence of Hurricane
Katrina, from 437,186 residents in
June of 2005 to 158,353 residents in
January 2006, a loss of nearly 64 percent.
However, it was St. Bernard Parish that
experienced the greatest relative
demographic impact of the hurricane,
losing nearly 95 percent of its population,
or a total of 61,215 residents out of a total
population of 64,576.
Mississippi Synopsis
A similar pattern of population changes
occurs in Mississippi where Hancock
County lost 24 percent of its population -
from 46,240 to 35,129 (a loss of 11,111
residents) Over the period July 2005-
January 2006. Similar patterns of
population changes were observed in
other counties within Mississippi as well.

8
Alabama Synopsis
While Mobile County was among the
largest affected regions in Alabama, its
principal population centers were mostly
protected from storm surge (because
of direction) and flooding (because of
intervening habitat). Out of a total
population estimated at 393,585 in July
2005, an estimated 391,251 were present
in January 2006 representing a total loss
of 2,334
In an article posted on newscientist.com
almost immediately after the hurricane,
Mr.Ray Nagin, the mayor of New Orleans
was quoted saying,"The city is in a state
of devastation. We probably have 80% of
our city underwater. With some sections
of our city, the water is as deep as 20
feet."
An article on the local news of New
Orleans's website, nola.com, Hurricane
Katrina has been defined as "The Storm
We Always Feared." It most definitely was
one of the storms humankind always
feared would hit the land and this
particular one led to the displacement of
hundreds of thousands of people in
Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama from
their homes, and experts estimated that it
caused more than $100 billion in damage.

BP OIL SPILL BASICS 10
The BP Oil Spill, also known as the Gulf
Oil Spill involved the explosion of the
Deepwater Horizon rig on April 20, 2010
killing 11 workers and creating an
environmental disaster in the Gulf of
Mexico. Oil flowed for 3 months, soaking
marine animals and birds in oil and
threatening the viability of the entire Gulf
coastline. According to an article on
ocean.si.edu, the Gulf oil spill is
recognized as the worst oil spill in U.S.
history. Within days of the April 20, 2010
incident, remote underwater cameras
revealed the BP pipe was leaking oil and
gas on the ocean floor about 42 miles off
the coast of Louisiana. By the time the
well was capped on July 15, 2010, an
estimated 4.9 million barrels of oil had
leaked into the Gulf, also confirmed by
Jindong Wu, a geography professor.
This disaster has been in the news for a
long time now. The settlement of this spill
case keeps on taking new turns everyday.
According to an article on mnn.com, BP
is supposed to pay a record fine of $4.5
billion. New findings kept on coming into
light since this disaster took place.
According to another article on mnn.com,
the 2010 BP oil spill contributed to an
unusually high death rate for dolphins in
the Gulf of Mexico. According to
researcher Graham Worthy, a biologist at
the University of Central Florida
said,""The oil spill and cold water of 2010

11
had already put significant stress on their
food resources. ... It appears the high
volumes of cold freshwater coming from
snowmelt water that pushed through
Mobile Bay and Mississippi Sound in 2011
was the final blow."
According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service, thousands of "visibly" oiled
animals-which
includes birds, sea turtles, and marine
mammals--were collected by authorities in
the vicinity of the Deepwater Horizon oil
spill. Many of the animals were already
dead.
As the days, weeks, and months
progressed the indirect impacts related to
seafood consumption have also gained
attention. The chemicals in oil that are of
most concern to humans are called
polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs).
Some of these are known to cause
cancer. Louisiana's $2.4 billion
seafood industry supplies up to 40
percent of U.S. seafood supply and
employs over 27,000 people. The state is
the second-biggest U.S. seafood
harvester and the top provider of shrimp,
oysters, crab and crawfish.

12
Almost a year after the disaster took
place, The U.S. government has declared
a "fishery disaster" in the seafood-
producing states of Louisiana, Mississippi
and Alabama due to an oil spill in the Gulf
of Mexico in order to ensure that the
Federal government is in a position to
mobilize the full range of assistance that
fishermen and fishing communities may
need.
The legal decision regarding the Gulf Oil
Spill is still not made. However, in a very
recent article on Huffingtonpost.com,
posted on March 7, 2013, BP Oil Spill
Payout is expected to be Billions Higher
Than Initially Expected, according to New
Court Ruling.

TOURISM 16
Implications of the Oil Spill
As we seek to understand the
repercussions of the disasters facing the
gulf states, we also look at how the states
resolved issues that affected hotels and
tourism. The problem was that hotels felt
that the BP oil spill affected tourism
because relief workers were deployed to
the region and occupied the hotels which
displaced travelers who were traveling for
vacation. "People who want to go to the
beach will go to the beach regardless of if
they have to switch coasts," says Paul
Tang, Vice President of Hyatt. The media's
coverage of the beaches was intensified
describing oily beaches and damaged
wildlife, along with questioning the safety
of eating seafood. This influenced how
people would make their decision to
travel to the Gulf of Mexico and
questioned when it would be the proper
time to return. Such information could
have damaged the tourism for a
significant amount of time.
Statistical evidence shows that in 2009 to
2010 after the BP oil spill, the occupancy
of hotel rooms was improved and of
greater magnitude than before in tested
areas including the state of Florida as a
whole and some Gulf Coast areas outside
of Florida. Mean percent change for the
directly affected area of Florida after oil
spill proved to be of significantly less
magnitude and had a smaller percent

17
change than those areas directly affected
outside of Florida. Most likely causes of
this percentage change was the BP
personnel working on the offshore
response. Areas not around the Gulf of
Mexico who did not have oil on their
beaches appeared unaffected and seem
to have seen growth over 2009 due to the
economy bouncing back.
Government Involvement When
Disaster Strikes
When disaster strikes, it is important for
hotel managers to have a good
relationship with the state government.
Attracting government customers during
this time will keep from suffering all profits
from the disaster. Hotel owners need to
be aware of natural disasters not only in
their area, but in other states as well to be
proactive and deal with issues as they
come. If the area is declared to be a
significant declaration of emergency, the
government funds the area and then state
government decides where assistance is
needed, whether it is public or individual
assistance. Individual assistance would
be for families and public would provide
assistance for local communities to
restore facilities.

Advertisements to Promote Tourism
along the Gulf Coast
British Petroleum launched a campaign in
2011 to create awareness about the clean
beaches. The advertisements highlight
2011 as being the most prosperous year
for the gulf states and invited people to
the clean beaches for a warm holiday. The
ads reached more than 50 percent of the
US population. Also, BP has been running
an online campaign, "MyGulf," showing
lives of spokespeople from the Gulf TV
spots discussing the best part of their
area, such as seafood or beautiful
beaches. In 2010 BP provided $87 million
to the gulf states and has committed a
total of $92 million over a three year
period so that the gulf states can promote
tourism to stimulate their economy. The
advertisements were additional to the
funds BP provided.
Others Affected By Oil Spill
After a year following the spill, the Gulf
Coast once tainted with 53,000 gallons of
oil a day for about two months, began to
prosper again. Hotels once abandoned,
beaches baron, started becoming
crowded again in 2011. The amount of
economic downfall that affected the gulf in
2010 is unbelievable. Charli Linn from
Alabama is one of many affected by the oil
spill that is not involved as much in the
hotel industry, but as a wedding planner
that lost a significant amount of business
because, "barefoot brides didn't want to
risk having their weddings ruined because
of oil slicks and tar balls." She had to
refund disappointed brides who had
canceled. In 2011 she sung a new tune
that business was bustling and she was
planning many beach weddings.

Promotions that Encouraged Tourists'
Return to Gulf
Millions of dollars were spent with grants
from BP to promote the economy of the
gulf states to ensure that tourists would
return to the Gulf. Dan Rowe, CEO of the
Panama City Beach (Fla.) Convention &
Visitors Bureau stated "Our numbers are
up, and we are on pace for a strong
summer travel season" (Rowe, 2011).
Many visitors were concerned with rising
gas prices, so many hotels participated in
the Giving Tanks promotion, which offered
gas cards and discounts for vacation
travelers. Although Florida's beaches
weren't affected as much by any crude oil
ashore, the state's marketing and
promotion agency, Visit Florida, went into
crisis mode in 2010 to correct
misperceptions and communicate with
tourism in the state. Florida also spent
$13.5 million promoting the area through
television, digital, radio, and print
advertising. Grants have also been spent
on fishing tournaments, a poker
tournament, a national flag football
championship and a soccer tournament.
Promotions are one of the most aspects of
Public Relations that influences how
people will perceive a situation and cloud
a previous bad perception of a brand or
this case, an area reliant on tourism.
Hurricane Katrina and BP oil Affect on
Tourism
It can be a long time before people are
going to believe that it is safe to travel in
an area that has been devastated by either
unexpected storms by nature, or man-
made disasters. It took nearly five years
for New Orleans to rebound from
Hurricane Katrina. From numbers
shrinking from 10.1 million visitors to only
3.7 million. The road to recovery in 2010
was set back by the BP oil spill. The
problem was that even though the city

20
saw little damage from the disaster and
tests performed declared no
contamination,people still perceived that
the area was affected because of the
media 's emphasis on the damage and
lack of communication to visitors. To get
visitors back to the Big Easy, promotions
such as hotel specials and restaurants
held fixed-price menus, along with
contests to win a trip. The Saints' Super
Bowl win also helped with interest in the
area.
Ethical Issues
BP initially claimed that the oil spill would
have "minimal impact," which resulted
into the largest offshore oil spill in the
history of the United States. The press
was denied public access to the site
which raised ethical questions about what
information should be made available for
the public. Was BP justified in restricting
access in order to save its image from
being even more tarnished? When there

21
is a huge effect on wildlife, economies,
and the environment how much obligation
should be placed on the company that
caused it? It is nearly impossible to
measure how much economically was
devastated and damage to the food chain.
Ethical issues are raised with the
protection of wildlife, because there is little
protection in the Gulf and no penalty can
be issued for harming and destroying the
animals' habitats. Another ethical concern
is that areas in the east coast, such as
Myrtle Beach, were promoting their
beaches as clean to attract tourists. At
what marketing costs do we take social
responsibility and offer a solution without
attacking the vulnerability of devastated
areas.

WILDLIFE 24
Hurricanes
Hurricanes generate four forces, which
can cause damage to the biological
resources of a region: strong winds,
tornadoes, storm surges, and rain.
Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast region
with all of these forces on August 29,
2005, and has caused considerable
alterations to Gulf Coast ecosystems, and
their biological resources.
Wind Dislocation
During major storms, sea birds and
waterfowl are most exposed. In a unique
effect of cyclonic hurricanes, the eye of
the storm with its fast-moving walls of
intense wind can form a massive "bird
cage" holding birds inside the eye until
the storm dissipates. It is often the eye of
the storm that displaces birds, more than
its strong winds.
Tree Loss
In 1992, Hurricane Andrew brought
incredible wind velocities onshore and
knocked down as many as 80% of the
trees on several coastal Louisiana basins,
such as the Atchafalaya. Tree loss during
Hurricane Katrina in 2005 caused even
more extensive damage. Loss of coastal
forests and trees can be devastating to
dependent wildlife species and migratory
species. Many wildlife species have very

25
specialized niches in these forests that
are lost to heavy winds. Specific foods
can be taken away too. High winds will
often strip fruits, seeds and berries from
bushes and trees.
An estimated 150,000 acres of coastal
wetlands and bottomland forests have
been damaged on national wildlife
refuges. This represents expanses of
coastal marshlands along the Louisiana/
Mississippi coast and important inland
systems like the Atchafalaya basin.
Debris and silt clog aquatic habitats, and
oil, chemical, or other hazardous waste
releases are impacting entire aquatic
ecosystems both through the water
column and in storm-deposited
sediments. These releases may have
short-term, immediate impacts as well as
long-term, chronic ecosystem-wide
effects to aquatic communities and
migratory birds.

Long Term Impacts
Unbalanced Food Web: The Gulf oil
disaster hit at the peak breeding season
for many species of fish and wildlife. The
oil's toxicity may have hit egg and larval
organisms immediately, diminishing or
even wiping out those age classes.
Without these generations, population
dips and cascading food web effects may
become evident in the years ahead.
Decreased Fish and Wildlife
Populations: Scientists will be watching
fluctuations in wildlife populations for
years to come. It wasn't until four years
after the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil disaster
that the herring population collapsed.
Twenty years later, it is still has not
recovered.
Immediate Impacts
In the months following the Gulf oil
disaster, wildlife managers, rescue crews,
scientists and researchers saw many
immediate impacts of the oil impacting
wildlife.
Oil coated birds' feathers causing birds to
lose their buoyancy and the ability to
regulate body temperature.
Mammals could have ingested oil, which
causes ulcers and internal bleeding.
Sea turtles were covered in oil
Dead and dying deep sea corals were
discovered seven miles from the
Deepwater Horizon well.

RESTAURANTS 30
Fisheries
The Gulf Coast where Hurricane Katrina
struck is an especially important center of
commercial and recreational fishing,
producing 10% of the shrimp and 40% of
the oysters consumed in the United
States. Commercial shrimpers fishing out
of or delivering to Alabama, Mississippi,
and Louisiana ports account for almost
half of all U.S. shrimp production. Katrina
destroyed fishing boats and processing
and storage facilities throughout this area.
The impact of Katrina on fish populations,
habitat, and their viability for consumption
is significant. For oysters, the Louisiana
Department of Fish and Wildlife used
studies of resource mortality caused by
hurricanes Ivan and Andrew to estimate
mortality of existing resources caused by
Katrina. The initial estimate is a 99% loss
of oyster resources in Louisiana waters.
For thousands of men and women living
on the Gulf Coast, fishing is not a
pastime , it a way of life passed down
through generations. A way of life that
was brought to a dramatic halt by the
winds of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita that
tore homes apart and crashed ships to
shore.
Seafood is a major industry in the Gulf
states. The region first impacted by
Hurricane Katrina was the site of 15 major

31
fishing ports, 117 seafood-processing
facilities, and over 14,000 fishing vessels.
In 2004, the value of the commercial catch
in this area was $596 million.
As a result of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita,
losses in seafood production were almost
$2 billion in Louisiana. Mississippi and
Alabama each experienced losses of
approximately $200 million. In Louisiana,
projected dockside losses from shrimp for
the year are over $81 million, and it is
estimated that the year retail losses will
total nearly $540.
The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and
Fisheries estimates the 12-month potential
losses at dockside for crab ($12.3 million),
menhaden ($44.6 million), other saltwater
fish ($11.8 million), and freshwater fish
($190,000).

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Restaurants
The Gulf States are the primary source for
the American seafood market, supplying
69 percent of shrimp, 70 percent of
oysters, and 90 percent of crawfish
produced in the country.
Restaurants represent a $77 billion
industry in the Gulf States and employ
more than 2.2 million people. Even a slight
drop in business drastically impacts local
economies.
Tommy Cvitanovich, owner of Drago a
popular New Orleans seafood restaurant
issued the following statement to the
press:
"The Board of Health has done an
unbelievable job in making sure all of our
seafood is safe. I'm going to tell you in
talking to our customers, the customers
are all convinced our seafood is safe. We
have no problems with that whatsoever,"
Cvitanovich says.
Cuisine in the Gulf region, particularly in
Louisiana, is based heavily on locally
produced seafood. "New Orleans and
Louisiana restaurants are famous for [one]
main reason: obviously seafood that is
indigenous to our area," Cvitanovich
says.

CELEBRITIES 36
Past and present, every generation looks
up to celebrities as role models. These
role models inspire clothing, lifestyle
choices, and places to donate.
Throughout disasters, celebrities tend to
give relief to places in need. The Gulf
State disasters are no exception. Many
celebrities have set the trend in donating
to and aiding various efforts
Similar to a hurricane strength rankings,
celebrities who donate were put in order
of the most overall involvement with
charities and philanthropic work. Ranking
at number one is Bill Clinton who has
donated to over ten disaster relief charities
George Clooney, John Legend, Annie
Lennox, and Bono rank accordingly below.
These community service works range
from relief concerts to monetary donation
or hospital visits. Being involved with
these causes not only helps the particular
celebrity's image, but gives awareness
and great publicity to the charity in need.
In response to the 2005 Hurricane
Katrina, several celebrities aided the relief
efforts. With around eighteen thousand
survivors, a helping hand was needed.
According to Diana Mimon, the celebrities
who donated one million dollars to help
the cause included The Rolling Stones,
George Clooney, Celine Dion, Nicolas
Cage, and the rapper Jay-Z. Being
shocked from the images of the disaster,
actress Angelina Jolie wrote to members

37
of Congress and the White House asking
for an increase in disaster relief. John
Travolta, licensed pilot and actor, flew his
plane down to Baton Rouge full of food
supplies for the refugees. Deciding to
bring hope to people in need, Oprah
Winfrey cut her summer vacation short to
fly down and access how her resources
and herself could be best utilized. In the
end, celebrities have used their pull in
society and monetary resources to help
the disaster relief of Hurricane Katrina.
Fast-forward to the year 2010, celebrities
were also available to aid relief and raise
money for the British Petroleum
Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Larry King
hosted a phone-a-thon with various
celebrities to obtain donations on CNN.
This event raised over $1.8 Million for the
cause.
To make a loud statement to the British
Petroleum corporation, Lady Gaga, Korn,
and Creed made the decision to boycott
the gas giant on their tour buses and
trucks. Willie Nelson chose to turn to
biodiesel instead of consuming BP gas.
He called it BioWillie.
The comedian Stephen Colbert had one
of the biggest effects on the disaster. On
his television show the Colbert Report, he
asked the search engine Bing to donate
to the oil spill every time he spoke the
word "bing" in one of his episodes.

38
Colbert said "bing" forty times throughout
the show and raised one hundred
thousand dollars for the disaster relief. In
addition, Stephen Colbert had the number
one retweeted tweet on Twitter in 2010
regarding the oil spill. The tweet stated,
"In honor of oil-soaked birds, 'tweets' are
now 'gurgles'."
Although celebrities did help out with the
2010 oil spill, many were hesitant and
slow to help the cause. ABC News
suspects the lack of a large human
element may have been to blame.
In the end, celebrities have helped the
causes to gain awareness and publicity.
These donations and aid not only help
disaster relief, but maintain a social
responsibility image for the public to
follow.

SOCIAL MEDIA 42
In our society today, one of the fastest
ways to find news, express your opinions,
or connect with a company is on social
media. Social media is on our computers,
in our pockets, and posted on
advertisements. The importance of social
media practices and studies are crucial
during a period of disaster. The population
will likely pick a subject to blame, but who
will it be? This section will highlight how
social media is typically used, how it was
used in Gulf Shore disasters, and what are
the outcomes of these practices.
The term social media can be defined in
many ways as it is always evolving and
changing with time. It can be thought to
"consist of any online platform or channel
for user-generated content". Augustine
Fou, from Marketing Science Consulting
Group, Inc., defines social media as
"people's conversations and actions
online that can be minded by advertisers
for insights but not coerced to pass along
marketing messages." Lastly, it is "any
number of individual web-based
applications aggregating users who are
able to conduct one-to-one and one-to-
many two-way conversations."
For the sake of constancy, the definition
we will use is media based on
conversation and interaction between
people online. This involves delivering
information, photos, videos, and other
media rich content.

43
Social media comes in different shapes
and forms. Blogs can be used to keep
personal diaries or educate readers about
a niche topic. The most popular blog
websites are Wordpress and Blogger.
Microblogs are a shorter, quick version of
a blog. Twitter asks their users "What's
Happening?" Twitter users have one
hundred sixty characters to respond in a
tweet. Events can be organized on social
media platforms, such as Evite or
Socializr. People use platforms to give
reviews and share opinions about
products. Collaboration happens with
Wikipedia and social bookmarking
websites. With years to come, social
media platforms will die and rise.
Marketing and having good public
relations through social media is an
important aspect for companies or
government segments. Social media
creates a sense of community with
consumers. Strauss and Frost state in E-
Marketing, "Building a successful online
community is not as simple as making a
Facebook page and hoping folks will drop
by... Companies are competing with over
160 million other pages, groups or events
for viewer attention." They further list
seven steps necessary to have a
successful online community on social
media. Observe conversations. Find the
influencers in the field and recruit them.
Evaluate which platform is best for your
community connection.

Initiate the discussion online and be
engaging. Measure to find the metrics of
social media for your company. Promote
to build a buzz. Lastly, improve your
special media and online community by
building from feedback. These seven
steps should be followed in order to be
successful from a company point of view.
However, crisis situations do occur and
need to be dealt with in a certain manner
by marketers and public relations
professionals. Jay Baer, author of
Convince and Convert, gives a few
suggestions and steps of how to deal
with crisis management in a social media
world. First, know what is a crisis and
what is not a crisis. A crisis can be
thought of as a turning point or a stage in
a sequence of events at which the end of
all future events is determined. If it is a
crisis, the company should acknowledge
is via their platforms. By stating you know
about the problem, the flood of
comments should slow down. In addition,
the organization needs to be sorry about
the disaster or crisis. Even before social
media, society forgave Exxon for the
Valdez oil spill in 1989 and Tylenol in 1982
for the Chicago murders because they
apologized for the problem. Companies or
organizations should also have a crisis
FAQ page on their website. This is easy to
direct questions to, versus responding to
every Facebook comment or Twitter tweet
individually. The FAQ page should include
acknowledgement, details of the crisis
with photos, the specific action taken, and
the contact information of an actual
person in the company. If there are still
complaints, which there will be, the
company needs to build a place for
people to vent. For example, make a
Facebook post asking for people to vent
in this location and it will not be taken
down as long as it follows the rules. You
want consumers to vent on your watch
and not on their own space and in their

circles. Lastly, learn your lesson.
Organizations are recommended to
deconstruct and reconstruct their crisis
social media practices after the event.
Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf States on
August 29, 2005, and social media, as we
know it today, was very little. To give
reference, the popular platform MySpace
was only gaining popularity in 2006. As
social media was merely non-existent at
the time, a large portion of the nation
received their information about the
disaster through the television. National
and local news broadcasts were crucial at
getting news to the nation. This provided
the nation with mainly one-way
communication and difficult means to
give feedback where it would make a
difference.
However, social media in 2010 for the BP
oil spill was in full swing. Facebook
became the most visited website by
Internet users, according to eMarketer.
Most people were moving to get their
news via social media outlets and caused
a decline in newspaper sales. Social
media was very present and many sought
to this outlet when expressing their
opinions on the matter.
British Petroleum had many problems
regarding their social media practices.
Heidi Cohen, in an article about 2010
social media highlights, stated, "Despite
extensive crisis management and
expensive advertising campaign, social
media made a public relations nightmare
exponentially worse." The corporation
wasted their funds on extensive
advertisements claiming they were
helping, but in actuality, the British
Petroleum company was not helping the
oil spill recovery clean up. When
expressing concerns, BP did not respond
and sent out very standard messages on
Facebook and Twitter. On their social

media platforms, these standard
messages did not apologize for the crisis.
To make matters worse, the corporation
did not address the Deepwater Horizon oil
spill until one month after the disaster
started. Overall, British Petroleum's lack
of good social media practices destroyed
their social capital.
As a result of these ill practices, British
Petroleum created an abundance of
responses. The greater American
population chose to bash the company
on their various social media accounts,
ranging from comedic meme pictures to
demeaning hash tags. Many swore
against the company and refused to fill up
at their gas stations in the future. When
Facebook users searched for British
Petroleum's fan page, the Boycott BP
Facebook Page was first in the search
results. In 2010, the number one search
was for the BP oil spill with negative,
harmful results. Finally, the biggest hit to
the British Petroleum brand was the
British Petroleum parody public relations
twitter account. One hundred seventy-five
thousand accounts chose to follow
@BPGlobalPR's ironic tweets. For
example, "Black sand beaches are very
trendy in some places. We upgraded u,
Gulf of Mexico. #bplovesbeyonce."
Without these entertaining tweets,
@BP_America is the real account with only
fifteen thousand followers. Because of
these items, the public image of British
Petroleum is changed in the eyes of their
consumers.

47
In the end, theorists have researched the
best tactics to running a social media
campaign with or without a disaster
occurring. British Petroleum did
advertising and press releases, only to fall
to the power of social media. Anyone with
an opinion can now voice it. Everyone can
be an expert on anything. When enough
people have the same opinions, they
group together and can make detrimental
damage to a company's brand. British
Petroleum's brand is damaged to the
generation of social media.

ETHICS 50
BP initially claimed that the oil spill would
have "minimal impact," which resulted into
the largest offshore oil spill in the history
of the United States. The press was
denied public access to the site which
raised ethical questions about what
information should be made available for
the public. Was BP justified in restricting
access in order to save its image from
being even more tarnished? When there is
a huge effect on wildlife, economies, and
the environment how much obligation
should be placed on the company that
caused it? It is nearly impossible to
measure how much economically was
devastated and damage to the food chain.
Ethical issues are raised with the
protection of wildlife, because there is
little protection in the Gulf and no penalty
can be issued for harming and destroying
the animals' habitats. Another ethical
concern is that areas in the east coast,
such as Myrtle Beach, were promoting
their beaches as clean to attract tourists.
At what marketing costs do we take
social responsibility and offer a solution
without attacking the vulnerability of
devastated areas.

KATIE BUTLER
Originally from Texas, Katie is a senior studying Public
Relations & Rhetorical Advocacy. At Purdue a, she is
involved with Alpha Gamma Delta, Panhellenic Association,
and Old Masters.

JEET SAWHNEY
Born in Milwaukee, WI and brought up in New Delhi, India,
Jeet is a senior in Public Relations and Argumentation at
Purdue University. Graduating in May, Jeet will be joining
J.P.Morgan Chase in Chicago, IL.

JESSIE TOWNS
Jessie is a senior from Ludington, Michigan studying Public
Relations and Advertising. She interns for a local web
design company where she works with promoting local
businesses and individually works on customizing social
media pages.

MARIAH BHATTI
Mariah is also a native Texan senior studying Public
Relations and Rhetorical Advocacy at Purdue University.
She is a member of Alpha Phi Fraternity, and she plans on
attending law school after graduation in May.

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E-Marketing, 6th Ed., by Judy Strauss and
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highlights-included

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