BP gets low marks from LI execs on newspaper ads

The buzz among Long Island ad executives last week was the full-page ads BP took out in national newspapers regarding the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. BP did not get good marks.

Norman Oberlander, owner of Zip Productions Inc. in Melville, said the ad -- featuring a color picture of a boat on cleanup patrol in a wetlands area -- left him feeling "cold."

"They're losing the human touch," said Oberlander. "I'd like to see a BP person talking to me. This is a little removed." BP, Oberlander said, was attempting "damage-control," but it was not persuasive.

Rick Chiorando, chief creative at Hauppauge-based Austin & Williams, said BP's ad should have appeared weeks ago.

"This is a runaway train, and they're trying to figure out how to stop it," Chiorando said.

"This is a waste of money. They're a day late and a dollar short. This should have been done weeks ago."

Charles MacLeod, president of Sanna Mattson MacLeod in Smithtown, said if he were heading BP's advertising team he would have "gotten out in front of this right away" instead of waiting weeks into the crisis.

"There's too much fluff" in the ad, MacLeod said. "It needs more facts, more technical information as to what they are going to do.

"They are trying to convince the public that everything is going to be OK and that people shouldn't stop buying their gasoline."

Robert Wine, a BP spokesman in Houston, said he could not comment on the views of advertising executives.

But, he said, "What we were trying to do is let the American readers know what we have been doing. We had taken out some ads" in some Gulf Coast newspapers in recent weeks.

"We are trying to reassure people that we are absolutely committed to resolving this problem."