Why "Mess" is a Great Goal in Crisis PR

I recently worked on a crisis PR assignment that had everything going against us. My client, a leading law firm based in Los Angeles, represented a restaurant-management company who subletted part of their building/restaurant lease to a trendy wine bar.

As typical with sublets, things were a tad nebulous. So when the agreement went sideways for numerous reasons, the restaurant-management company decided to padlock the door on the wine bar at 3am on the Thursday prior to July 4th weekend. They then cleaned out all the tables and equipment and put them in storage. That’s when all heck broke loose.

The wine bar called the police, claimed theft and held a press conference with the padlocks in the background for visuals. The wine bar also incited a near riot among loyal locals who loved the establishment. Of course, neither my law firm client nor I were in (preferrably ahead of) the loop on any of this.

Fast-forward to Sunday, July 4th at 5pm where I had just entered a party at a friend’s house. My cell phone rings with the law firm emergently reaching out and for good reason:

1. There was no PR plan in place for what was obviously going to be a dramatic situation
2. Shutting down a wine bar at 3am prior to a holiday weekend will not make many friends
3. TV cameras were on-site for two days prior to my involvement and had given the wine bar unchallenged coverage
4. The most influential local blog covering the area had already run two stories on the padlocking and neither were favorable to the restaurant-management company
5. While the wine bar was distributing misinformation-laden flyers door-to-door in the entire area, none of the claims were being refuted
6. The restaurant managers were highly emotional and had “rogue” tendencies. For example, they offered their law firm and me as “available” for on-camera interviews.

Working quickly and closely with the law firm, we made the following decisions that any company or individual could use in a similar situation:

1. No on-camera interviews – local TV media feasts on conflicts involving emotion and with an impending legal dispute, it would have idiotic to put any verbal responses into public record.
2. Reached out to every writer, reporter and producer who had covered the story and submitted a written response to each claim made by the wine bar.
3. Set up a lengthy interview between the area’s most influential local blog and the law firm. Of all the media outlets involved, the blogger was most likely to write an objective, long-form journalistic article on a complicated issue that affected loyal readers living closest to the conflict.

Within 24-hours, what could have been a total PR (and legal) disaster morphed its way into a “mess” – in fact, “mess” was the exact word the influential blogger used in the feature wrap-up column title.

“Mess” might not sound good at first glance, but when you are on crisis-defensive in the middle of a holiday weekend and days behind the opponent’s attack, getting the public to read about a bunch of attorneys espousing the minutia of contract law is nothing short of a miracle.

Sometimes cutting your losses in PR is just as good as an outright win.