Brent Spar ruined the image of Shell. It is one of the most spectacular image crisis the world have ever seen. In 1995 Greenpace started a seabattle; tiny boats against a 14.500 tons massive oil tank. Until today the „Brent Spar“ is the object lesson for the badest crisis communication. Shell planned to sink the Brent Spar in the pacific. 100 tons of Oil and Saltcrust would go down with the Brent Spar.
The first mistake was, that Shell official announced they wanted to change and be the best example for an ecological company. At the same time people knew that they wanted to sink an oil tanker in the pacific. The vicious circle was definitely not to stop after that statement.
The second vast mistake was to denial the problem with brent spar and to ignore the activits from Greenpeace. Maybe ignore is not exact the right word, when you saw the pictures of actvists attacked with water cannons. Should that repair an image? The German headquarter of Shell knew it would ruin them completely, but the UK said: “It is only a continental freak out“. While in the UK everyone denialed what was happening, the situation in Germany escalated on every stage. Shell gas stations were attacked, boycotted and tenants got detah threats. The headquarter in Germany really tried to de-escalate the situation, but the people were so mad that no argument could stop the anger.
Shell could do only one thing. Not to sink the Brent Spar, and of course, they did not. „David“ Greenpeace won against Shell the „Goliath“. One of the biggest Headlines was „Zershellt am Boykott.“
After that, Shell tried with everything they had to do image repair. But they never really recover from that incident. Today Shell has an file with 135 sites of the incident, published on their website. I was not able to find the picture of the huge campaign with the words: „Wir haben verstanden“ and the picture of the Brent Spar in the background. They tried to apologize with that, because they had to. It was a promise! With this campaign they promised not to throw their waste in the sea.
The most disturbing news is that according to the company’s own information, Shell wants to leave the remains of three old platforms with 11,000 tons of oil in the North Sea and not dispose of their toxic content on land in an environmentally friendly manner. I am lost for words.
Global Communications Research 