BP’s C-Suite executives need to roll up their sleeves and get involved a few hours a week, every week for the foreseeable future, doing actual clean-up work in the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill. This needs to be more than just a 15-minute photo op. The American audience is savvy enough to see through BP’s halfhearted efforts and there needs to be more a more obvious expression of honest commitment from the company to show that it is in fact sincere about its concern for mitigating the immense oil damage to the Gulf.

Americans and the Obama Administration should indeed be skeptical of BP’s commitment after the incredible remarks by BP’s CEO and Board Chairman minimizing the true extent of the leak; complaining about their lives being disrupted by the publicity surrounding the leak; and actually denigrating average Americans by calling us “little people.” There have been way too many mistakes and apologies to just discount this latest insight into BP’s true feelings. BP must do something more concrete to show real empathy and not superficial sympathy for the incredible damage they have caused to our natural resources, businesses and lives forever changed by the oil spill in the Gulf.

BP’s slogan is “Beyond Petroleum.” However, in order to start recouping some credibility they need to move to a place of real and sincere corporate involvement that is Beyond PR.