Leroy Stick – the man behind @BPGlobalPR
Dearest Media,
My name is Leroy Stick and I am the man behind @BPGlobalPR. First, let me begin by explaining my name.
When I was growing up, there was a dog that lived on my block named Leroy. Leroy was a big dog with a disdain for leashes and a thirst for blood. He made a habit of running around our block attacking anything he saw, biting my dad and my dogs basically whenever he had the chance. He chased me a few times, but I always escaped because I was/am an amazing tree climber.
Anyhoos, after Leroy’s second or third attack on my dogs, it became clear that the police and Leroy’s owner weren’t going to do anything to stop him, so my dad took matters into his own hands and came up with a brilliant invention: the Leroy stick.
The Leroy stick was, you guessed it, a stick. My dad carried an axe handle and I carried a plunger handle. My dad told me two things about carrying the Leroy stick. First, if Leroy came near me or the dogs, I should hit him. Second, if I hit Leroy with my stick, I would not get in trouble. Was it legal? Probably not. Was it right? It sure felt like it. We set the example and soon a lot of our neighbors started carrying Leroy sticks as well. Soon enough, Leroy and his owner saw everyone carrying sticks and Leroy didn’t run free anymore.
If you think the point of this story is to beat dogs with sticks, then I’m guessing you probably still think I work for BP as well.
The point of this story is that if someone is terrorizing your neighborhood, sometimes it’s alright to grab a stick and take a swing. Social media, and in this particular case Twitter, has given average people like me the ability to use and invent all sorts of brand new sticks.
I started @BPGlobalPR, because the oil spill had been going on for almost a month and all BP had to offer were bullshit PR statements. No solutions, no urgency, no sincerity, no nothing. That’s why I decided to relate to the public for them. I started off just making jokes at their expense with a few friends, but now it has turned into something of a movement. As I write this, we have 100,000 followers and counting. People are sharing billboards, music, graphic art, videos and most importantly information.
Why has this caught on? I think it’s because people can smell the bullshit and sometimes laughing at it feels better than getting angry or depressed over it. At the very least, it’s a welcome break from that routine. The reason @BPGlobalPR continues to grow is because BP continues to spew their bullshit.
I’ve read a bunch of articles and blogs about this whole situation by publicists and marketing folk wondering what BP should do to save their brand from @BPGlobalPR. First of all, who cares? Second of all, what kind of business are you in? I’m trashing a company that is literally trashing the ocean, and these idiots are trying to figure out how to protect that company? One pickledick actually suggested that BP approach me and try to incorporate me into their actual PR outreach. That has got to be the dumbest, most head-up-the-ass solution anyone could possibly offer.
Do you want to know what BP should do about me? Do you want to know what their PR strategy should be? They should fire everyone in their joke of a PR department, starting with all-star Anne Womack-Kolto and focus on actually fixing the problems at hand. Honestly, Cheney’s publicist? That’s too easy.
BP seems to only care about maintaining their image so they can keep making money, two things we have blatantly avoided. I don’t have an image and I’m not making any money AT ALL for myself. Every penny we make from the t-shirts goes to the Gulf Restoration Network. Just a few hours ago, we made our first official $10,000 donation to healthygulf.org from the money we’ve made selling free “bp cares” t-shirts in one week.
So what is the point of all this? The point is, FORGET YOUR BRAND. You don’t own it because it is literally nothing. You can spend all sorts of time and money trying to manufacture public opinion, but ultimately, that’s up to the public, now isn’t it?
You know the best way to get the public to respect your brand? Have a respectable brand. Offer a great, innovative product and make responsible, ethical business decisions. Lead the pack! Evolve! Don’t send hundreds of temp workers to the gulf to put on a show for the President. Hire those workers to actually work! Don’t dump toxic dispersant into the ocean just so the surface looks better. Collect the oil and get it out of the water! Don’t tell your employees that they can’t wear respirators while they work because it makes for a bad picture. Take a picture of those employees working safely to fix the problem. Lastly, don’t keep the press and the people trying to help you away from the disaster, open it up so people can see it and help fix it. This isn’t just your disaster, this is a human tragedy. Allow us to mourn so that we can stop being angry.
In the meantime, if you are angry, speak up. Don’t let people forget what has happened here. Don’t let the prolonged nature of this tragedy numb you to its severity. Re-branding doesn’t work if we don’t let it, so let’s hold BP’s feet to the fire. Let’s make them own up to and fix their mistakes NOW and most importantly, let’s make sure we don’t let them do this again.
Right now, PR is all about brand protection. All I’m suggesting is that we use that energy to work on human progression. Until then, I guess we’ve still got jokes.
Love,
Leroy Stick (aka a guy in his boxer shorts)
Thank you a lot for this great article. really usefull for many people and i’d like to share it into my blog with your resource link. Keep working harder dude
dizi izle
Come on now! WILD BEATINGS ALL AROUND! I think we need a grand old fashioned aristocrat purge. These bigwigs have been pushing buttons for far too long with no actual sense about what they’re doing, we need some more fight club around here.
I think it’s because people can smell the bullshit and sometimes laughing at it feels better than getting angry or depressed over it.
Months after the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, BP is optimistic in their statements that they have “fixed” the problem. Fixed it? Well, if by “fixed” they mean they’ve finally managed to stop the crude oil from spilling into the ocean, then I guess they’ve “fixed” it. I wouldn’t really consider the situation fixed; I would say that they’ve stopped the initial problem from getting worse. Now it time for us to deal with the consequences.
Well BP’s new venture into the far reaches of northern Russia will make them a pretty penny!
Perhaps ensuring no more disasters might be an idea!?!
Alot more effort and money needs to be put into sustainable sources of energy so all of this can have an end put to it
[...] Street Giant » Leroy Stick – the man behind @BPGlobalPR[...] of the Twitter handle in question, who used the alias “Leroy Stick” to pen blog post on Street Giant last week, launched his satirical tweetstream in the weeks following the oil rig explosion that [...] [...]
Another great post… thank you! I really hope BP cleans their mess.
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Great Post! I hope BP will finally learn to clean up its act. The oceans are very important to life on this planet. It should be their first priority to clean up the oil mess and then work on image brand.
[...] the “press release” that was posted on Street Giant, he introduces himself to the media, giving insight into [...]
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[...] Stick, the guy behind the infamous fake BP Twitter account, drove this home. When he “came out” in June of this year, he wrote, “… FORGET YOUR BRAND. You don’t own it because it is literally nothing. [...]
[...] author behind the now-infamous @BPGlobalPR, a man calling himself “Leroy Stick,” has recently posted a powerful explanation for his brand-jacking antics. While we here at Post-Advertising are indeed some of the “marketing folk” he derides [...]
Keep up the terrific work! Don’t stop for even a second. BP will try very hard to push all of this under the rug.
BP should be responsible, if not. The government should be responsible in investigating quickly and if it a matter of management or company policy that caused it then BP should be banned from the country and recommend the same to other countries. This disasters can’t go on and on.
[...] writes than one of the reasons he set up the spoof feed is that “BP seems to only care about maintaining their image so they can keep making money .. Right now, PR is all about brand protection.” Barack [...]
[...] up if we were allowed to use slaves. #justsayin #bpcares” September 21, 2010 // 0 from Leroy Stick, the man who took everything BP tried to do to clean up their PR mess and brought us @BPGlobalPR [...]
Who is the person behind the @BPGlobalPR Twitter account?…
Leroy Stick: http://streetgiant.com/2010/06/02/leroy-stick-the-man-behind-bpglobalpr/...
[...] of the Twitter handle in question, who used the alias “Leroy Stick” to pen blog post on Street Giant last week, launched his satirical tweetstream in the weeks following the oil rig explosion that [...]
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Dear Leroy,
Keep up the terrific work! Don’t stop for even a second. BP will try very hard to push all of this under the rug.
We must be vigilant and do everything we can to keep this disaster in the public eye for years to come!!! You are doing a great service for our earth!
Can you expose all of the prior deaths caused by BP on their rigs in the past, in addition to the 11 souls that were lost in the recent BP Gulf Disaster?
Everyone can get a free bumper sticker here: http://stickerobot.com/bp/
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[...] området. Den satiriska mikrobloggen BPGlobalPR har förutom sitt twitterkonto även gett ut ett pressmeddelande som bland annat berör BPs felaktiga fokus på att med alla medel upprätthålla sitt varumärke. [...]
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[...] PR becoming more proactive – Twitterstorms are showing the dangers of trying to sweep things under the carpet. Ask Trafigura or BP [...]
Wow, what a great post!…
[..] I saw this really fantastic post today and I wanted to link to it. [..]…