Trump mocked over press conference at Four Seasons Garden Center

PR Nightmare or PR Gold? The right (and wrong) way to handle a crisis.

By now, we’ve seen countless memes surrounding the odd location “chosen” for this press conference. Location mix-ups are not uncommon in the world of PR. They do happen. However, the experienced PR professional knows to “inspect what they expect” to avoid such mishaps and prepared to handle the aftermath in the event one occurs.

A Few Takeaways

This case emphasizes the immediate impact of social media during a crisis. I have written several crisis communications plans for large and small organizations alike; there is a section dedicated to Social Media and how to prepare for and manage the onslaught of comments that arrive like a tsunami. Suppose you cannot afford to hire a full-time professional social media manager. In that case, I highly suggest reaching out to an agency to tailor a crisis plan (now, before a crisis) and manage communications in the event your worst PR nightmare is splashed across newsfeeds everywhere. 

The Right Way: Kudos to The Four Seasons Hotel for closely monitoring their social media feeds and spotting an incorrect mention of their property. They quickly issued a tweet clarifying the false information. No doubt, their PR team was also busy calling each news station, so they did not show up while reminding hotel staff of protocols in the event they did.

Wrong-way: Not owning or admitting the obvious as per one of the statements given to reporters, "The campaign had always intended to hold the news conference in a friendlier part of town." I can think of numerous "friendly" locations in The City of Brotherly Love. PR professionals would be hard-pressed to believe this location (in-between a crematorium and a sex shop) was deliberately chosen for their executive to address the media while delivering an important speech. Once the mistake was realized, options in handling were available. Here are a couple of examples:

1. Reschedule the press conference for a few hours later, naming a new location. Sure, it would not have been ideal, and the media would not have been happy. However, a PR professional could have used verbiage along the lines of the following to mitigate the more significant crisis of having their leader filmed/photographed in such a unique location:

a. We acknowledge a mistake was made in booking the location of this press conference and are in the process of confirming a new site. We will communicate shortly when a new site and time has been confirmed. (or include site/time if already established) We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience.

b. (If changing course is not an option, like the Titanic, you'll have to do your best to mitigate the damage)

We acknowledge a mistake was made while booking the location of this press conference. To avoid inconveniencing attendees with last-minute changes, we will proceed as planned and believe the content of what we have to say is more important than the location. (not ideal, however, getting ahead of the story and acknowledging the obvious, you're taking control of your messaging before others do. Don't lie to the media to cloud a mistake. It will backfire. Posting a statement to your page will increase the likelihood of your messaging quoted on record prior to the press conference. Knowing the location would still lead the media reports, you would have at least done what you could to show you are taking ownership and not wanting to inconvenience others.)

Lemons or Lemonade: Say what you will about the Garden Center. It is clear they knew hosting an event like this would bring them "free advertising"; however, were caught off guard by the Twitterverse's worldwide seismic waves. They did not apologize for agreeing to use their property; instead, they made the best of the situation, turning lemons into lemonade. They handled the situation with grace while providing a message that resonated with many family-owned small businesses. Who could blame them for agreeing to a once in a lifetime opportunity to put themselves on the map without spending one dime? Especially in the wake of COVID, where annual revenue was also impacted. Here is a portion of their statement:

“Four Seasons Total Landscaping is a family owned small business run by life long Philadelphians,” a post said. “We were honored to be asked to host a press conference at our facility. We thank all of those that have shown support for our business and while we understand the negative comments, it saddens us that we have received such harsh judgement. Our team at Four Seasons would have proudly hosted any presidential candidate’s campaign … We strongly believe in America and in democracy. We hope that our fellow Americans can join together and support all local small businesses during this time.”

And then they chose to do what any savvy entrepreneur would do in their place, using humor as the silver lining to capitalize on the event. They end their statement by choosing a neutral ground to unite their community. The garden center gives a shout- out to their local sports team.

Genius.

“For those interested in purchasing shirts, our website will have a merchandise tab uploaded by Monday morning, just bear with us! Go Birds!”

Can you imagine the tongue in cheek sayings on these T-shirts? lol

I'm interested in hearing/learning other approaches to the aforementioned from peeps in PR/Marketing/Crisis Communications.