So if you’re BP’s marketing execs and your company just screwed up and spilled a bunch of oil in the ocean and keep screwing up with boneheaded statements from your CEO, what’re you going to do? Take out ads in major newspapers telling everyone how much you care? Check. Ads are running and roundly being mocked. What else? Oh yeah . . . how about buying up all the oil spill search terms? That way whenever anyone is searching for information on the oil spill, you can come to the top of the paid listings (which let’s face it, most people don’t know the difference between the paid and organic results) and direct people to your website with your propaganda?
It’s diabolical, isn’t it? Actually, it’s what I would do if I were in their situation. But still . . . ewwww. . . it’s kind of icky, isn’t it?