We’ve all had a bit of a laugh at the organising of a press conference in the carpark of a Philadelphia landscaping firm as opposed to a hotel. But what do you do when this PR opportunity falls into your lap?
Let’s look at the facts. Regardless of your politics (we are certainly not getting into that), this was a mistake. Elections are a busy time for many, staffers are busy, overworked, so we’re not saying anything about the capability of either party here. Let’s make that clear.
The Trump Campaign announced a press-conference at the Four Seasons, all seems normal, right? Wrong. The tweet where the campaign announced the press conference has been deleted, but the response from the international hotel chain stayed up.
It’s like a sitcom right? Four Seasons Hotel in Philly did pretty well out of this process, pretty good PR and exposure numbers. But now the world’s eyes were on Four Seasons Total Landscaping. Before that tweet, aside from those in their service area, nobody knew who this landscaping firm were. Now, they are an international star. But can you take advantage?
Yes, to answer, you certainly can. When you’re hoist into the spotlight, you can definitely shine. That’s not to say you won’t cop it. Their Yelp reviews certainly took a beating until they were suspended as evidently the reviews were not from those who were actual customers.
Four Seasons Total Landscaping definitely took advantage. They jumped on the twitter train quickly to jump on the exposure, and their Facebook grabbed a few headlines too. It was obviously all new to them, the criticism that is which will naturally follow any big international political story. But their response to that was so sincere, it showed them as real people.
A great post, and doesn’t go on the attack at all. A pretty well placed post which as you can see by the numbers, far exceeded anything they’ve had before. And, to top it all off, a meme to take a light twist on the response. A decent PR strategy.
Their Twitter is getting great exposure too. They reposted their Facebook post (above) and it spread like wildfire. They were actually compelled to create the account because people were making too many fakes.
And now, they’re selling merch! Talk about taking advantage of the PR situation!
Now, we have to be frank. Would we have managed this PR strategy differently? Yes. Most definitely. There’s a lot of things we would do differently, but that’s not to say the guys at Four Seasons Total Landscaping have done it wrong. They haven’t. And we’re not going to get into it here. We’re going to let them enjoy their new found fame that they have earned.
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