BP chief Hayward vows not to quit ahead of new ad campaigns

Speaking yesterday (6 June) on ‘The Andrew Marr Show' on BBC1, the executive pledged he had "an absolute intention of seeing this through to the end".

BP has come in for criticism after launching a heavyweight ad campaign in the US last week (see below), with Hayward shown apologising for the disaster, and promising that the company will clean up the oil and compensate all "legitimate" claims.

The ad campaign, which cost an estimated $50m, was attacked by US President Obama, who said: "What I don't want to hear is, when they're spending that kind of money on their shareholders and spending that kind of money on TV advertising, they're nickel-and-diming fishermen or small businesses here in the Gulf who are having a hard time."

The ad, produced by Washington-based public affairs agency Purple Strategies, rather than BP's incumbent agency Ogilvy, is set to be the first of several campaigns, with BP confirming its intention to launch a "series of ads" over the coming weeks.

BP, which said it has already spent £1.25bn on the clean-up operation, has installed a new cap over the leak, which claims to be capturing up to 10,000 barrels of oil per day. A second containment system will be in place by next weekend.

Hayward said: "When those two are in place, we would very much hope to be containing the vast majority of the oil."  He said the new containment operation was designed to "be essentially hurricane-proof."

This article was first published on marketingmagazine.co.uk