Boardroom Communications COO Donald Silver was a panelist at this past week’s Gold Coast PR Council meeting that focused on the PR lessons learned from the BP oil spill crisis.  He was invited to address South Florida public relations professionals from PR agencies and in-house corporate communications departments because of his expertise and experience in crisis communications.

Silver spoke from the PR agency perspective about the widely publicized Gulf of Mexico catastrophe, which is unfortunately still impacting the region today.  He offered a balanced analysis and critique of the company’s crisis communications and management track-record and also offered recommendations on what they could have done better.   The panel, which included the Sun-Sentinel’s Marcia Pounds, Visit Florida PR Manager, Kenneth Morgan, Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention & Visitors Bureau Media Relations Director, Jessica Taylor and Moderator and Gold Coast PR Council President Gary Schweikhart,  was in agreement that in the very beginning, BP made the right choice of putting former BP CEO Tony Hayward at forefront of the crisis, but that he ultimately was not the best choice as day-to-day spokesperson.

Silver pointed out that although Hayward did the best job he could on combating the ordeal, other specialized experts should have been brought into play when it came to interviews, such as local, regional and international scientists, engineers and biologists.  He also made the argument that because this incident was such so large in scope and lasted for several months, that no matter what BP said or did, the perception was that the    company was doing a poor job.   Although BP acted as quickly as they could with hiring 20,000 workers and experts to cap the well, stop the leak and protect the Gulf and shorelines in five different states,  public and media perception were still negative.  That’s why the company instituted the much maligned multi-million dollar print and TV public affairs campaign.

A Q&A session followed the panel discussion and included additional critique and comments.  All and all, the program was very informative and thought provoking, something we have grown to appreciate from other high-quality Gold Coast PR Council programs in the past.