The Companies With The Most Effective Websites Of All

BP was a great success in the U.S. last year. General Electric has done especially well after the Japanese earthquake. But Pfizer is a disaster.

Where do you get such an alternative view of the business world? By looking at companies in terms of of their online responses to crises or controversies. Amid all its failures in 2010 BP used its websites with skill. GE has defended its reputation with vigor while the world watched what happened to reactors it designed. Pfizer closed its major British facility, and failed to mention that or much else on its website.

The latest FT Bowen Craggs Index of corporate Web effectiveness gives a detailed examination of 75 giant corporations' use of online media. Five of the top 10 scorers are in the controversy-riddled oil and pharmaceutical industries.

Siemens, the highest-ranked of all, started taking the Web seriously after being dragged low by a bribery scandal some years ago. Shell, No. 3, learned a painful lesson in 1996, when Greenpeace exploited the Web skilfully during a protest over the company's plan to bury its Brent Spar oil platform at sea. Thus Shell started getting its online act together very early.

BP, No. 2, was not spurred into action by a crisis; rather its chairman, John Browne, had already been persuaded by fellow Intel board members that "webward" was the way to go, and BP responded vigorously online to the 2005 Texas City refinery explosion and several subsequent hurricanes.

Nevertheless the speed and depth of BP's reaction last April were notable. It cleared its corporate home page of everything else and turned the site into a giant information machine. Charts showing traffic to the site spike sharply, with visitor numbers matching those of major news sites such as Forbes.com. The gruesome video feed of oil gushing from the leak was certainly a big draw, but people wanted information too. There was a claim form for fisherman in several languages, including Vietnamese. The wildlife page had a section on what to do if you spotted an oil-soaked bird. Four state-specific sites were set up with information on cleanups, claims, seafood safety and the like.

Did this help repair the damage to BP's reputation? Not in an obvious way. But it should in the long run. In any crisis, information tends to be the first casualty. For Vietnamese fishermen, at least, that will not be true.

Few companies will ever have to react as BP did. But there are other ways to fight battles online, as the index shows.

Chevron, No. 13, has been using the Web enthusiastically in its battle with Ecuadorian courts over a $27 billion cleanup claim. It was told to pay $8 billion in February and has stepped up its fight since then. A standing homepage link leads to a mass of information, videos that claim to show its opponents in dubious light and a "news" site called the Amazon Post. These pages and a busy YouTube channel mirror the tactics of Chevron's critics. Corporations are learning from others who see online as their natural medium, though Greenpeace can still run rings around them all if it wants to.

Most recently General Electric, No. 7, has been using GE.com to direct attention to its online newspaper/blog, GE Reports, for information on the Japanese nuclear crisis. One of the main pieces there attempts to refute a New York Times article on the Fukushima reactor design. The site allows users to comment, which is risky but in this case worthwhile, as abuse is greatly outweighed by supportive comments.

British American Tobacco, No. 9, makes cigarettes, so you'd think it was beyond redemption. Look at its website though, and you will find a video on the illegal tobacco trade that is slick, sinister and very clever: BAT is taking on a subject where it's on the side of the angels, and it's pushing hard.

What about Pfizer? In early February the company, No. 46, announced a reorganization that included the closing of a major facility in Great Britain. There was huge publicity in Britain, yet on the local website there was nothing. No sign indeed of any updates since 2008. The company launched a new site at the end of March, but that was far too late. Failing to communicate in crisis is surely a business sin; failing to do so online is an increasingly cardinal one.

Here are the top 20 companies on the FT Bowen Craggs Index. For a complete, sortable list, click here.

1: Siemens (Germany); total score out of a possible 280: 217
2: BP (U.K.): 216
3: Royal Dutch Shell (U.K.-Netherlands): 213
4: Eni (Italy): 209
5: Unilever (U.K.-Netherlands) 206
6: Roche (Switzerland) 204
7 (tie): General Electric (U.S.): 200
7 (tie): Intel (U.S.) 200
9 (tie): British American Tobacco (U.K.): 199
9 (tie): Novartis (Switzerland) 199
9 (tie): Wal-Mart Stores (U.S.) 199
12: IBM (U.S.) 198
13. Chevron (U.S.) 197
14. Nestlé (Switzerland) 196
15 (tie): AstraZeneca (U.K.) 195
15 (tie): Cisco Systems (U.S.) 195
15 (tie): Procter & Gamble (U.S.) 195
18. Rio Tinto (Australia-U.K.): 194
19 (tie): GlaxoSmithKline (U.K.): 191
19 (tie) Statoil (Norway): 191

David Bowen works for Bowen Craggs & Co., a Web effectiveness consultancy.

Thank to Forbes
http://www.forbes.com/2011/05/12/companies-with-most-effective-best-websites_print.html