BP Boycotts are for Idiots

[bpr]

There are at least a half dozen gas stations in my area that have "covered up" or replaced their BP signs with those of rival brands.

This is insane.

A former client of mine and general counsel for a petroleum refiner and retailer put it to me this way: the gas you get at the pump is not from the oil drilled by the same company.

I made a risky joke about how I preferred Citgo's "socialist oil" from Hugo Chavez's wells, and she didn't laugh. Venezuela was, she explained, their largest single supplier of crude.

Exploration, drilling, refining and retailing are all different pieces in the chain that get oil from the Macondo oilfield to gas that goes into your tank.

In other words, the stuff that's pouring out of that well could just have easily ended up in the tanks at a Mobil station, or a Valero, or a Sunoco.

The only effective boycott would be to ride your bike to work.

[Chomsky]

Re: BP Boycotts are for Idiots

The issue is not objecting to the actual oil from Macondo itself, it's refusing to abet in a wantonly criminal organization's success.

[bpr]

Re: BP Boycotts are for Idiots

The issue is not objecting to the actual oil from Macondo itself, it's refusing to abet in a wantonly criminal organization's success.

The thing is, BP's success is not dependent on the success of their brand at pumping stations. Every distributor buys from the refiners, and the refiners trade between each other, and BP is one of the majors.

Drive past BP and pull into a Valero station, and you're likely pumping some of BP's product anyway.

[Chomsky]

Re: BP Boycotts are for Idiots

The thing is, BP's success is not dependent on the success of their brand at pumping stations. Every distributor buys from the refiners, and the refiners trade between each other, and BP is one of the majors.

Drive past BP and pull into a Valero station, and you're likely pumping some of BP's product anyway.

Of course. But given that people can't stop driving their cars all at once, right now, and foresake gasoline completely -- even under the most optimistic scenarios change in this regard will take many years -- boycotting BP's gas stations is the most obvious way to register one's anger with the brand. And certainly SOME component of their profitability derives from their gas station franchises, so boycotting them is not totally ineffectual.

[housingcrashsurvivor]

Re: BP Boycotts are for Idiots

That I eat a mostly vegetarian diet is not me boycotting the meat packing industry. If I did eat meat, should I feel obligated to support any particular slaughter house, particularly the independents?

Not everyone has the stomach to euthanize weakened, oil soaked pelicans, nor to watch the suffering of lucky survivors, even given the hope of bird washing stations. Some need distance from horror and sometimes that means bypassing a BP gas station.

[charliebrown]

Re: BP Boycotts are for Idiots

If I remember correctly, BP sold its stations a few years ago, they are now indepently owned. I suppose the owners do pay some francise fee to BP for use of the logo etc. Like others have said, I chat with a gas station owner in town. He says he calls the gas terminal at 4:00 PM and asks for a delivery in the evening. He dosen't care who makes the gas, whoever has the cheapest price gets the nod. Any one of the major refiners will fill the order.

[flintlock]

Re: BP Boycotts are for Idiots

Exactly. People who think this is hurts BP somehow don't get it. All that little warm feeling they get from "sticking it to BP" does is hurt their own local people.

[WildspitzE]

Re: BP Boycotts are for Idiots

the one thing that i don't get though is, and perhaps you with more insight into how their arrangement works can explain it to me: if BP isn't involved at all, then why allow a bunch of independents the use of their franchise's branding? what's the upside vs the potential liability of giving people outside of their organization the use and control of their public image? and, what's the upside and liability for the independents using someone else's public image as your own? there has to be a business arrangement and level of diligence involved by both parties.

if it's just advertising, do the independents that own the BP station get $ for the advertising? if so, then the independents who decided which brand to carry should've been more diligent who they advertise for, and what public image they choose to embrace. hopefully they negotiated contracts where they can "stop advertising" under royal screw ups like this one and move on to a different brand.

in general: i don't see an issue with mkt participants destroying the currency that is a brand when it has earned such destruction, and those that have chosen to use it. it's how it should work imho.

[flintlock]

Re: BP Boycotts are for Idiots

Good point WildspitzE. But I think leadership at BP are now worried about a lot more than their revenue from the gas station end of things. And brand image is pretty much shot to hell anyway. The people actually responsible for this fiasco will be fine. They will cut and run at some point, and go live off their considerable bonuses made by cutting corners, etc.( if indeed that is the case) Its the rest of the people at BP that will have to clean things up and start to rebuild the company.

Any impact now from the public's boycott will not do more to prevent further disasters like this than the huge financial losses that have already occurred. It's kind of piling on imo. Not that I am opposed to boycotts, but I can see their usefulness more when the boycott can actually help mold corporate behavior. (Like when companies use sweatshop labor). If BP's record was so bad as some here claim, where were the boycotts before the spill? It just strikes me as closing the barn door after the horse has left. Done more to make us feel better than any real positive impact. It just pays to remember that 99.99% of those at BP who will suffer from this had absolutely nothing to do with the spill.

Maybe this is a lesson to us all to pay attention to who is running these companies.

[touchring]

Re: BP Boycotts are for Idiots

Exactly. People who think this is hurts BP somehow don't get it. All that little warm feeling they get from "sticking it to BP" does is hurt their own local people.

When the Obama administration makes a big deal out of the leak, and hardly any of the leak gets to the shores of state of Mississippi and Florida, the tourists get scared away, who suffers?

The people that caused the blowout, Transocean, is doing the clean up and probably the relief well operations as well, which is ironic because they will not be held responsible for the leak.

How fast can you expect people who are not responsible to fix the leak??

They will take their own sweet time and drag. This whole crisis has been mismanaged from day one.

[flintlock]

Re: BP Boycotts are for Idiots

Boycott Transocean ?

[nitroglycol]

Re: BP Boycotts are for Idiots

Popehat has an interesting post on this issue here.