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198: Can You Tell Me How to Get (Out of a Crisis) Sesame Place

by | Jul 27, 2022 | Podcast

Examining the recent incident at Sesame Place in Philadelphia. In a video that went viral, a performer dressed as the beloved Sesame Street character Rosita appears to snub two Black children after high-fiving other visitors to the park.

In this episode, we discuss what happened, how the park responded, why the initial response didn’t work, and why they needed a second response to clean it up. We break down Sesame Place’s first official response and explain exactly what was wrong with it and what was missing from it, before learning about the Indestructible PR framework for writing an ideal response.

Key Points From This Episode:

  • Why you should always consider what reasonable people will think.
  • How the element of care was missing from this response.
  • Why it’s so important to show care to the victims in the first 45 minutes.
  • Why owning it is always step number one.
  • Why you want to use the word “apologize” in a formal statement.
  • The Indestructible PR tip for the day: If you have a victim that is activist-minded, never
  • dismiss them.

How you can find more tips in Molly’s new book Indestructible: Reclaim Control and Respond with Confidence in a Media Crisis.

Tweetables:

“The first statement that was written was not a great statement. I don’t want to be the grammar police on this one but if there’s ever a time to get your writing right, this is the time.” — @MollyMcPherson[0:08:27]

“If you don’t show, in the first 45 minutes, some commitment to care — that you care about the victim, what happened to them, and other people like them — you’re going to lose the crisis. And then in six hours, you’ve lost control of the crisis, you’ve lost the narrative of your own crisis, and people are going to take it from you.” — @MollyMcPherson[0:22:24]

“You have to show an awareness to the event or to the issue and it has to be the right issue! You cannot create what you think is the problem, it has to be the problem that everyone else thinks is the problem, particularly the victim.” — @MollyMcPherson[0:24:18]

“Never dismiss the victim ever! Especially if that victim is already on Instagram and they’re already viral.” — @MollyMcPherson[0:29:26]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

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