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Study: BP Has Lost A Billion In Brand Value

by Karl Greenberg , June 21, 2010

A new media study says shamed oil giant BP has lost close to a billion dollars in online brand value since the late-April Deepwater Horizon explosion. The study, via media firm General Sentiment, says that just since June 1, BP has lost more than $32 million a day in brand value.

General Sentiment CEO Greg Artzt says the firm calculates media value by converting sentiment and exposure, based on online mentions, to CPMs, or an advertising-equivalent dollar value thereof. He says the firm's software analyzes some 30 million sources of content a day from news, social media, blogs and website. "We use sentiment analysis to explore whether it's from a press release or just natural discussion.

"We don't measure advertising, though" says Artzt, who tells Marketing Daily that the firm also doesn't measure negative sentiment. Rather, all sentiment is measured in terms of how positive it is. "We measure the natural values," he says. The oil company's numbers are, by comparison, far worse than those of Toyota, per Artzt.

"If you look at Toyota, it depends on assumptions you make; our base assumptions are such that what we do is give positive value to everything but less of a positive value to comments or news that is negative." He says the firm compiled a list of the 20 most-commented-upon brands in the first quarter. "Toyota got into it, and we found that online conversation about them amounted to a $250 million loss, about a fourth of BP's."

He says it will cost BP a fortune to dig itself out of the hole it is in just on the media side. "At the retail level, it will affect them," he predicts, adding that the numbers show that BP would have to do a tremendous amount of advertising merely to counterbalance the negative commentary. "And they are clearly worried about their brand; they do a lot of advertising. But look at their market cap. They won't recover."

And, in case anyone is looking, the firm says the estimated media value cost per gallon of the 126.3 million gallons or so of oil that has gushed into the Gulf (based on government high-ball estimates) is $6.66 per gallon. The Exxon spill was 11 million gallons.

energy, research, retail

4 comments about "Study: BP Has Lost A Billion In Brand Value".

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Dean Harris from Brand Navigator, June 22, 2010 at 6:39 a.m.
This article is interesting, but not for the "insight" that BP's brand has been severely diminished by the events that have taken place in the gulf. I find it interesting that someone believes this is a credible way of measuring the financial impact of the commentary arising from the disaster on BP's brand. The validity in trying to assign CPM equivalent values to the sentiment of comments in social and conventional media is undermined by so many problems, the least of which is the ability to effectively measure reach. Measuring reach by counting conversations as a surrogate for counting people is, at best, guesswork.
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Mike Einstein from the Brothers Einstein, June 22, 2010 at 8:18 a.m.

I find it interesting that when it comes to calculating their loses, all of the sudden they know exactly how much oil is leaking.

Paula Lynn from Who Else Unlimited, June 22, 2010 at 9:02 a.m.

The best PR would be no PR. However, that does not follow the British tradition. The statements made by their powers that be as in "small people", "getting my life back" has been the attitudes of the ruling class. They are not mistakes; they are intentional. The more learned about British history, the more is learned about the attitudes towards the expendable masses. The oil spilling, the destruction, the people are not the important factors. Who keeps the power, their titles, their lands and control - these are the concentration of importance. What have you heard from the palace?

Steven Howard from Howard Marketing Services, June 22, 2010 at 7:22 p.m.

Trust sinks while BP spins.

It's not the fact that they had an accident that makes this brand suspect; it's the manner in which they have tried to pass off blame and responsibility that bothers me the most.

Add to the above the 700,000 "friends" who have signed on to one of the three Boycott BP pages on Facebook, and you have a brand that is approaching free fall.

Sadly, the BP Board doesn't seem to get this yet. By the time they do, it will likely be too late. The tombstone for the BP brand is being readied, and the graveyard of Enron, WorldCom, HIH Insurance awaits.