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I’m finally getting around to reading The Innovator’s Dilemma from Clayton Christensen, though I’ve heard the branded term enough to understand the general gist of the book.

Two pretty choice quotes that I’ve liked a lot from just the first few pages of the book:

There are times at which it is right not to listen to customers, right to invest in developing lower-performance products that promise lower margins, and right to aggressively pursue small, rather than substantial, markets.

And a similar, though perhaps more descriptive, quote:

First, disruptive products are simpler and cheaper; they generally promise lower margins, not greater profits. Second, disruptive technologies typically are first commercialized in emerging or insignificant markets. And third, leading firms’ most profitable customers generally don’t want, and indeed initially can’t use, products based on disruptive technologies. By and large, a disruptive technology is initially embraced by the least profitable customers in a market.

The continuing saga of the BP oil fiasco is a simultaneously depressing and absurd episode. It’s as if a car crash was going to occur at a particular intersection outside your office window every day for 6+ weeks.

This disaster has all the key ingredients to fan populist anger. Think about it:

• Technical hurdles that sound simple, leading to public Monday Quarterbacking
• Corporate ineptitude
• Corporate arrogance and finger-pointing
• Massive environmental impact
• Opportunity to use the crisis for political gain or grandstanding

To top it off, the repeat failures just seem to give all the interested parties multiple opportunities to go off (“Missed it? There’s another train leaving tomorrow when BP screws something else up.”).

Assuming that the ongoing leak/spill does get resolved and that expensive clean-up slowly happens (and it’s telling that I even have to write ‘assuming’), I wonder what will happen to BP’s brand. Brian thinks it’ll recover like the Star Wars kid, but as I wrote there (copied below), I would be concerned about too much lasting damage to the BP brand. Maybe it won’t matter in this case, but if this lasts long enough, people may just start to associate BP with general ineptitude and take their business across the street.

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From a business perspective, I would be incredibly worried about my brand if I were them. Even without a corporate death penalty for them, I’m failing to remember a case where a company had such a crisis that just did not go away.

You’re right, the continuing nature of it is harmful. Most crises happen once, horribly, and then there is clean-up [product recall, oil spill clean-up, apology, etc.]. This one has continued long enough to reach multiple news cycles, to the point where the public is having the perceived ineptitude/arrogance actually reinforced: “Wait, this shit is STILL going on? WTF?!”

It’s as if Toyota had a problem with brakes on one model of the Prius, and then every few days (for months) it was announced that another vital part of the vehicle (or other vehicles) were also having issues (“And today, we find out the Camry’s windshield wipers will snap, break through the windshield, and stab passengers in the eyes. Oh, and Toyota has yet to apologize.”).

You’re right, even Jack in the Box recovered from undercooked beef killing several children, but it took years and years. I wonder what happens when a company’s brand hammered so continuously for such an extended period of time. Maybe it won’t matter for a gas company that relies less (?) on brand loyalty and more on distribution channels and retail location. Maybe?