As the virtual ‘muck’ becomes thicker for bp the realization of the public relations nightmare they created is dawning. If you have noticed in the last few weeks the news stations have been reporting less and less on the spill or even really conveying the damage caused. Controlling information is all about money, and that is something BP has plenty of. Search for anything on Google relating to the oil spill and the very first “Sponsored links” is

BP Response
www.BP.com/GulfOfMexicoResponse Learn About BP's Progress On The Gulf Of Mexico Response Effort.

For those that may not know how Google AdWords work I’ll explain a bit, as a business that wants an ad in Google you have to bid on placement. Google charges a Cost-per-click (CPC) rate and had advertisers “bid” on how much they are willing to pay per click. This can range from a few cents to a few dollars depending on the popularity of the keywords used and the placement of the ad. Just to give you an example a while back I started an ad campaign for a site I was promoting, in two days and 18 clicks I had accrued a $10.12 advertising bill from Google AdWords for a small text ad that had middle of the page placement. BP on the other hand is top billing, meaning their Google ad budget alone must be astronomical. Add in the radio and television commercials assuring the general public that everything is “okay” and they are quite possibly spending as much on controlling PR as on the cleanup itself.