On April 20, 2010, British Petroleum (BP) spilled oil into the Gulf of Mexico after an explosion
occurred on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig. As a result of the accident, 11 workers died and millions of
gallons of oil spilled across 1000 miles of coastline with an estimated cost of $40 billion to cover
clean-up costs, fines, and other liabilities. In addition to taking responsibility for the clean-up, BP
launched a unique website called “Gulf of Mexico restoration” to repair its reputation and defend itself
from negative criticism. Coombs’s (2007) article “Crisis Management and Communications” indicates
that one of the most effective methods of reputation repair for a crisis is to create a unique website or
designate a section of its current website to address crisis concerns. BP’s “Gulf of Mexico restoration”
website uses three strategies to try to repair its reputation: repetition of the words “commit” and “restore”
to highlight the company’s consideration and recovery actions; presentation of clean images of the Gulf
region to emphasize that life is back to normal in the affected region; and intentional word choice
emphasizing that the accident was caused by multiple parties to deflect blame and minimize BP’s
responsibility for the accident.
The first strategy BP uses on its website is the repetition of the words “commit” and “restore” to
highlight the company’s consideration and recovery actions made since the oil spill. BP attempts to show
that it cares about the affected region by repeating the word “commit.” In the video “Committed to the
Gulf,” which is located on the “Committed to the Gulf” page, BP repeats the word “committed” and
shows the statements “Committed to the Gulf” and “Committed to America” with a white background at
the end of the video to emphasize the word “commit.” The video also provides specific information to
support “commit” statements such as “wetive paid $23 billion in claims & cleanup” and “we support
nearly 250,000 American jobs.” By repeating the “commit” statements, BP effectively shows its
dedication to America, the environment, and the economy after the oil spill. BP emphasizes its recovery
actions to the affected region’s environment and economy by repeating the word “restore.” BP uses the
word “restore” in the title of two pages, “Restoring the environment” and “Restoring the economy.” These
two titles emphasize the word “restore” and lead the readers to information showing that BP’s financial
and operational efforts have successfully cleaned the Gulf Coast. BP uses this strategy to highlight the
