12/13/2002

Massey Energy Co. launches ad campaign to improve its image

By TARA GODVIN Associated Press Writer

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) -- Multiple generations of a family sit around a table eating dinner. One middle-aged man is clearly anxious. He says his mining company is still waiting for permits and workers are expecting layoffs. Others at the table talk about how people in the community are leaving.

A little girl asks, "We won't have to leave too will we?''

"That would just break my heart!'' says an older woman with white hair.

The scene is from one of seven television advertisements Massey Energy Co. says it has released over the last several months to remind West Virginians of the importance of coal.

"No one wants the perception of being the bad industry,'' said Jeff Gillenwater, director of external affairs at Massey.

Four of the ads specifically promote Massey. But the company has a long way to go to improve its own image.

Testimony began Tuesday in Madison in a trial where a Massey subsidiary is accused by residents of Sylvester in Boone County of knowingly locating a facility up wind from their town, covering their houses and land in coal dust.

In October, another subsidiary spilled 100,000 gallons of coal slurry into two Logan County streams, prompting the Department of Environmental Protection to recommend up to $85,000 in fines.

But Gillenwater said the belief that coal is a heartless industry that swoops in to take West Virginia's coal without regard to the local communities and then ships the profits out of state is wrong.

"My focus on this is coal is about economics, human benefits and importance,'' Gillenwater said.

During the past five years Massey, which is West Virginia's largest coal producer, has invested $1 billion in the state, Gillenwater said.

The Richmond, Va.-based company also has numerous programs, ranging from scholarships to Christmas present drives, for the needy in the communities where Massey has a presence, Gillenwater said. However, he did not know exactly how many of these programs the company sponsored or how much money was spent on them. Nor would he say how much the company is spending on its television campaign.

"Maybe we should keep a list of what all we do,'' Gillenwater said. "We don't do these things for the press. We do these things for the kids in our community.''

Still the campaign and programs might not convince everyone to change how they look at Massey.

United Mine Workers of America International, for example, has long been critical of the predominantly nonunion Massey and remains so.

"Massey Energy's recent advertising campaign amounts to nothing more than desperate and highly expensive damage control,'' Cecil Roberts, president of the UMWA said Thursday.

Vivian Stockman, project coordinator for Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, agreed.

"No amount of public relations is going to change the fact that Massey is a bad corporate neighbor,'' Stockman said. "Their ads ring hollow.''

Often companies who try to change the tide of public sentiment with ads don't receive the outcome they expected, said Cheryl Kaiser, director for communications at the Center for Corporate Citizenship at Boston College.

"People are smarter than that,'' Kaiser said.

"An ad campaign can sometimes backfire,'' Kaiser said. "It's got to be substantive.''

Companies need to look at what has earned them their reputation and change their behavior, Kaiser said. An ad campaign needs to be part of a larger strategy.

But no ad or social program can help a company that profits from an unhealthy product or has business practices that damage the health of surrounding communities.

"It's not how you give your pretax dollars away on the street,'' Kaiser said. "It's about your business.''