BP: Top Kill is an Epic Fail.
The environmental disaster in the Gulf is ongoing; nothing more devastating than the images of oiled birds at the Louisiana beaches.
Meanwhile, BP attempts to mend their online image by purchasing dozens, if not hundreds of Google Adwords.
The BP campaign has been criticized for its attempt to divert the attention of the public.
One of the first measures taken against the oil spill, is a process referred to as “top kill” – from Wikipedia:
A top kill is a procedure used as a means of sealing an oil well that is experiencing an uncontrolled eruption of crude oil or natural gas. The process involves pumping heavyweight drilling mud into the manifolds connected to the top of the well. This procedure stops the flow of oil and gas from the well and is a prelude to sealing the well completely (usually with cement).
Unfortunately for BP, the top kill process failed more than two weeks ago. However, the Adwords campaign still claims that BP will contain the spill using the top kill method:
Screen capture of BP's sponsored result on Google, taken today.
In other words, BP is lying to searchers of the “top kill” term; the link simply takes one to the generic BP page discussing the oil leak.
At the same time that BP announced its use of top kill as the process that would contain the oil spill, the domain name TopKill.com went for sale at Sedo.
Was BP being a cheapskate and preferred the Adwords method or have they actually bought the TopKill.com domain that was sold for only $1,000 ?
Currently, TopKill.com is in Sedo’s transfer escrow and the page is parked at … Parked.com
Regardless, an epic fail for the BP marketing gurus who have failed to do effective damage control, as much as BP has failed to control the oil spill for more than 50 days.
That image sums it up nicely. i was considering registering BottomKill.com in case they moved to that option, but i decided not to. it is now registered. MiddleKill.com is still available though, however I see that KillBP.com has been taken
Mike, I think the ultimate price would be for the domain BP.com to be auctioned in order to pay the BP shareholders that are furious with the company’s plunging stock and how it handled the situation.
Well done on the image!
Just so you know, BP did not have any interest in this domain name. I was surprised that they didn’t want this name strictly for damage control.