In 1917 British cans of motor oil that were being sold under the name, “Palm Tree Oil”, began being marketed as “BP”, or “British Petroleum”. The company wouldn’t be renamed BP for another 40 years, but the letters began appearing on the sides of delivery trucks and on pumps in the twenties. The first logo was created in 1920, by a BP employee, which consisted of a shield surrounding the letters “BP”, with small wings surrounding the letters inside the shield. The colors were originally red, blue, or white, but the colors on the delivery trucks and pumps were changed to green after complaints from local business owners who claimed the colors “stood out too much” in the more rural areas.
The shield logo would stay the logo for another 80 years until the year 2000, when the new logo and mission statement was unveiled. The new logo would contain a sunburst of green, yellow, and white symbolizing dynamic energy in all its forms. The logo was called the “Helios”, after the ancient Greek sun god. Also unveiled was the new mission statement, “Better People, Better Products, Big Picture, Beyond Petroleum”.
The current BP Company has five standard values that they expect all of their employees to abide by; Safety, Respect, Excellence, Courage, and the “One Team” attitude. Also, the warm colors in the company logo not only show the company’s respect for the environment, but also promote a “family environment”. Now, can a company that was responsible for the largest oil spill in history really claim safety is their first priority? Maybe, but the “Deepwater Horizon” oil spill that occurred on April 20th, 2010, killed 11 BP employees and injured 17 more. This alone does not condemn them as a company, but in 2010 there were 14 work-related deaths (3 if you don’t include the spill) and 18 more in 2009. Despite these numbers, BP has actually been a relatively safe oil company compared to their competition. BP had a recordable injury frequency (injuries per 200,000 work hours), or RIF, of about 44.4, while ExxonMobil had an RIF of about 55. Now, both of these are below the benchmark standard for the RIF, but injuries and deaths are still occurring at too high of a rate in my opinion. It seems like the “Big Picture” for BP is making money, and as long as they maintain a standard that is acceptable by government standards that most likely will not change.
Paul -- interesting stuff. Why the sunburst, do you think? What are they trying to "say" with the sunburst and how it relates to oil? Why not show oil? Keep thinking of your posts as writing practice -- include intros and conclusions; structure a little argument; have it all tie together. The final paragraph here has a lot of facts that do not address the post's purpose -- which is to examine the logo.
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