...which is, I guess, part of the risk when you throw the corporate umbrella over yourself. Being willing to benefit from corporate ad dollars, franchising, & infrastructure...but then acting like victims when the downside of that surfaces? Isn't reasonable.

Are the BP's we see convenience stores or gas stations?

This is one among thousands of points that I wish more "free-market fundamentalists" would appreciate.

The market ideal, we should all agree, is a very good thing (at least compared to alternatives). But the reality is very far from the ideal. We are all much more interdependent than the ideal would suggest, and it is likewise nearly impossible to hold individuals and institutions wholly and directly responsible for their behavior, as an efficient market demands. History has struck upon the best strategy: to limit (or tax) behavior (impose "regulations") so as to prevent (or recoup costs for) the most damaging, difficult-to-hold-individually-responsible behavior. (It's not even evident to me this is incongruent with a "free" market, since market equilibrium theory demands no negative externalities.) Sadly there seems to be a wave of people who don't see the big picture.

BP is both a consumer brand and an oil producer, the consumer brands (retailers) do not necessarily buy gas from BP and the conglomerate sells their oil to many other brands. You might be buying BP Gas at any gas retailer.

I wish people weren't so ready to boycott.

It's just not terribly effective; the Montgomery bus boycott is a singular example: African-American patrons made up a sizable portion of the system's clientele, their absence was immediately apparent, and -- I'm guessing about this, but I suspect it's true -- potential boycotters would be less likely to cave and ride the bus because it would be so obvious to their if they crossed the boycott line. Even with all those things in its favor, it also was CAREFULLY planned -- the organizers just were waiting for the right person to rally around (and found her in Rosa Parks).

By comparison, Avatar made ZILLIONS of dollars -- and if it made fewer because some people were appalled by its racial politics, well, how can that be measured? There's no way to track the people who didn't go (and there's a good chance some of the people angry about the film wouldn't have gone anyway -- I'm sure that's what the filmmakers told themselves, "Oh, those are all PC intellectual types, they aren't going to see a popular movie like this anyway" -- and there's no way to know how many progressive people shrugged their shoulders and went anyhow, because who's going to hold them accountable?

It would take a lot for BP's losses at the pump to equal the financial costs of the spill, mitigation, etc. -- and the collateral damage (as far as local business owners) is awfully high.

And really, putting one oil company out of business? That doesn't accomplish much in the long run.

A much better goal, IMHO, is to use this incident to build momentum for better regulation of the entire industry, in the US and internationally. (It was this same blog several months that posted a map of oil spills globally showing how relatively small the BP spill is.)

Press for stronger requirements, better enforcement of existing requirements -- maybe even set up some kind of international account (paid for by oil companies) to fund spill remediation efforts.

All of that is a better use of time/energy/money than boycotting BP.

This is exactly the line where theory and practice meet and demonstrate the differences. in theory people would punish BP by buying less of their products and causing them to lose business and change their practices. In practice, the people punished are the small business owners who have found that paying for the BP logo to become a liability rather than a boon. The obvious response would be for the owner to simply dump BP and switch to an independent label or to another company, but that ignores the extravagant fees for doing so. if the consumers were to backlash against BP in such an significant amount that most bp stations decided to change, it would only make the oil industry as a whole more money as they switch to arco or shell and pay the start-up costs and the cost for materials and so on. BP might even recoup that same loss as arco or shell might find itself unable to meet the new demand for their alternate brand and purchase surplus oil from BP. BP as a company might dissolve, but all of its assets and manpower and executives will just go to another oil company. There is literally no fiscal way to punish these people, and that's exactly the way they want it. It's the end goal of survival. To live on forever and keep the money flowing and get ever bigger.

The only real way to protest is to buy a bike.

And firebomb some corporate offices.

I think it's also relevant to point out that while it's hard to say if this ad in particular is an "effort to smooth over the negative publicity BP has recieved as a result of the oil spill in the gulf", it is far from "obvious". This kind of marketing has been used by the oil industry (and the mining industry, and the retail industry, etc.) for just about as long as marketing has existed.

If something isn't "obvious", we shouldn't be so quick to say that it is.

But this is a zero sum game, in that you can only spend so much on gas per month. If you chose to buy at gas at one gas station, you're implicitly choosing NOT to buy gas from all the other local gas stores--all of which are probably owned by a small business owners. What did they do to deserve financial punishment?

In the end, unless you allocate equal portions of your fuel budget to all local gas stations, whereever you buy your gas or pop you're going to be punishing SOMEBODY. It might as well be the BP branded franchises.

Honestly, given that boycotts are probably not going to do much anyways it's probably irrelevant where you buy your gas.

I'm a little bothered that Lisa did not do a little more research. Quoting the National Convenience Store Association was a good start, but perhaps it would be better to point out that the people who have BP on gas stations are bound by contracts that require them to use the BP name even when they are not buying BP gas. A simple google search would have added a little more information and we can see that perhaps BP saying it is part of the community is to help those gas station owners who are boycotted unjustly.

http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/media/boycott-bp-that-hurts-station-owners-not-the-company/19499350/

Nope, no, no, I am not going to feel sorry for "small business oweners" who knowingly bought into the fossil fuel biz and are now suffering. There are plenty of other business ventures that don't aid in such a direct manner the wars and environmental devastation caused by oil companies. I realize that's a radical stance but not all small business owners are created equal. Don't blame the consumers boycotting the oil companies, blame Bp for giving us reason to boycott. Okay?

Most gasoline station owners make their money from the convenience stores, not the actual gas itself. The markup on gasoline is so low they can't make a go of it without the convenience store. So theoretically, one could still black BP's eye by not buying the gasoline, but continuing to purchase goods from the convenience store.

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