Poor market communication
Shell was lack of marketing on its Brent Spar disposed plan. when the announcement was made, they failed to gain the stakeholders’ support because they underestimate the power of persuasion of NGOs and the power of public against them (Kitchen 1997, p.105). While Shell have the thought of their decision is a positive option, however their analysis had not included scientific report or advice from those who are really expertise on the ocean environmental (Lofstedt 2012, p.117). Because of this, Shell was unable to debate against Greenpeace claim on the remaining of crude oil in Brent Spar in an immediate response.
This showed the decision making was lack of transparent, as there was no occur of cross-discussion session with the public starting from the beginning of the planning stage (Harding 1998, p. 2). The communication strategies which taken by UK Shell and government showing mistake that not involving all the stakeholders, leading to unpleasant conflicts from all stakeholders (Lofstedt & Renn 1997).
Standing as a public, Shell was positioned as a greedy company due to their choose on cheapest option for deep water disposal rather than land disposal, which supposed to be the most environmentally choose (Lofstedt & Renn …show more content…
164). When Greenpeace argued about the environmental and scientific issues against Shell’s decision, Shell’s management showed delayed respond on handling crisis. Thus, the public were persuaded by the negative arguments, which dumping will pollute the ocean. They became even more emotional after the publication of pictures showing Greenpeace activists being sprayed by Shell with water cannons (Regester & Larkin 2005, p. 164). This showed that Greenpeace was able to create high leverage level of media, compared to Shell (Kitchen 1997,