Los Angeles, CA – Ace Metrix™, the industry standard in television advertising analytics, today released results of its standardized television advertising creative effectiveness testing for the British Petroleum (BP) ad apologizing for the massive Gulf oil spill, “Tragedy That Never Should Have Happened”, that first aired Thursday June 3, 2010.
Ace Metrix surveyed* a nationwide sample on June 4, 2010 and found that 75% of all respondents disagreed with the statement that Tony Hayward, BP CEO, seems to be the right person to lead BP out of the disaster. Twenty per cent (20%) of those who have purchased BP gas in the past said they will never buy from BP again, and 31% said they will buy less.
Ace Metrix™ uses a patent-pending standardized methodology, called the Ace Score, to measure and rank television advertising creative effectiveness. The BP apology ad delivered an Ace Score of 526, out of a total of 950, which is in-line with 523, the average of all ads within the Ace Metrix™ system. The ad scored highest with females 36-49 and lowest with males 36-49.
However, according to Ju Young Lee, co-founder and Chief Scientist at Ace Metrix™, when looking at the components of the Ace Score, it becomes clearer that with the Apology ad, “BP missed an opportunity to emotionally connect with consumers and convince them BP is going to change for the better.”
Verbatim comments captured by the Ace Metrix™ system immediately after consumers viewed the ad support this conclusion:
“I like the ad but I’m skeptical about the company’s ability to keep the promises made in the ad. I also want more information about how they intend to keep this from happening again. I very much distrust the oil industry as a whole, given past experiences around the world with other oil spills.”
“I appreciate BP finally stepping up and making a fairly informative ad. I think it should have been done sooner. I think they should be more direct… I’d like to see future updates like this. I’d also like to see what they will be doing for those in the Gulf region, and anywhere this struck, for their livelihoods. I’d also like to know what they plan to do for the wildlife, ecosystem.”
“I fell (sic) that BP is trying to say the right words to make us think they are sorry for the spill. I think there should have been a plan in place in case this type of accident happened. Also there should be better safety checks on oil wells. The only thing I came away with from this ad was that they want us to forget about the accident and let them go back to making money. There is no way they can or will be able to clean up the spill and we will be suffering from it for decades to come.”
“He should be fired so he can have his life back. I have oil in my camp and don’t have 10 people cleaning it up much less thousands. It’s lip service. I understand BP did not want this to happen but it did. My life will be forever changed because of this tragedy. The people of South Louisiana have to jump through too many hoops to prove this and that. Wait till a hurricane spreads the oil even worse. This is a nightmare.”
Those Closest to Spill More Tolerant
Although consumers across the country reacted in similar ways to the ad, the intensity of their reaction differed by region. Those who lived closest to the oil spill, in the South region, showed the most positive reaction whereas those who live far from the spill, but in BP’s consumer market region, the Midwest, reacted most negatively.
Consumers are spilt in their opinion about BP’s effort. While 41% think BP is doing everything it can to control the spill and clean it up, an equal number of people (42%) believe that BP is doing only what it needs to do for public relations purposes. They also feel that BP’s efforts in public relations damage control is too little too late (47%).
The majority (71%) of respondents believed that BP is most responsible for the oil spill, followed by U.S. Government (12%), Transocean (11%) and Halliburton (4%). A large number of respondents (40%) felt that the government response to the spill was inadequate and slow.
