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What the Trump Clemson feast teaches brands about riding a politically charge media wave

How best can a brand capitalize on a potentially media event, like the Trump-Clemson White House feast this week, without getting blasted for the wrong sentiment or action? We asked an expert for some general guidelines.

January 18, 2019 by S.A. Whitehead — Food Editor, Net World Media Group

If you haven't caught wind of the whole Trump-Clemson fast food feast at the White House thing, yet, please crawl out from under that rock and listen now, because there are vast lessons to be learned in the weeklong event for restaurant brands that want to ride a politically hot media wave, without crashing into the ocean floor. 

First and by way of review for the aforementioned rock-dwellers, on Monday U.S. President Donald Trump invited the national college football playoff winners, the Clemson University Tigers to the White House for what turned out to be a feast of some of the top QSR and pizza  brands' offerings, all still wrapped up in their colorful packaging. 

The president has taken heat for honoring the elite athletes with the kind of carry-out meals most Americans purchase as value-focused sustenance on the go. This article will stay out of that realm of the story. But we were interested to know how restaurant brands can best capitalize on this kind of potentially politically charged event without getting blasted by social media and news media blowback. 

To that end, we threw some basic questions around this subject at a number of public relations firms and got some great responses from the Chicago-based No Limit Agency and its founder and CEO Nick Powills. We wanted to know what an expert in media relations and marketing might advise restaurant brands to do in similar situations to gain the most press with the least public scorn. 

"If you are not the first to market, the opportunity to go viral is limited."

                                         -Nick Powills

First, we wanted to know the same thing a lot of restaurant brands probably want to know: How can a brand gauge the absolute best moment to jump into a media wave, like the Clemson White House feast? 

"Often times it is really first to market," Powills said in the interview with this site. "This is with any real-time event —Super Bowl lights going out, White House fast food, elections, blunders, etc. It's rare that a brand does something not for the PR value. Thus, if you are not the first to market, the opportunity to go viral is limited."

In this case, the public sentiment and overall "climate" around the event was charged and rife with minefields that responding brands could trigger with just a slight misstep. But there have been other cases — think Cinnabon's well-intended by ill-received tribute after the death of actress Carrie Fisher's — where the public clearly thought the brand did not display proper respect on social media.  That's where the brand displayed a drawing  of the actress in something like flour or powdered sugar, with a Cinnabon roll for her famous Star Wars-inspired side hair buns. The accompanying text read, "RIP Carrie Fisher, you'll always have the best buns in the galaxy." 

Again, as well-intended as the tribute was, the brand clearly made a wrong move. So we asked Powills how brands can determine if the climate around an event that they want to take part in is actually amenable to such use.

"Evaluate the best-case result that can come from joining a story. If it's not that great and it doesn't naturally fit your brand's voice, then you may want to avoid."

"There isn't one clear pathway to determining if it is an actionable event — meaning, it is a case-by-case basis. Typically, anything political should be avoided because you can't please everyone with a response, unless, of course, your brand's voice is already set up in that conversation. 

"At the end of the day, the most valuable insight we can provide is to evaluate the best-case result that can come from joining a story. If it's not that great and it doesn't naturally fit your brand's voice, then you may want to avoid."

But, brands that do choose to jump in, then still provide the wrong response .will quickly and not quietly know they've screwed up, Powills said. Social media has made public reaction to just about any highly newsworthy event instantaneous. 

As Powills put it, "If you upset your crowd, they are more than 'okay' letting you know. Politics, race, religion should all be avoided — anything that could upset valuable customers."

Lastly, we wanted to see if Powills could hold up any brand's response to the Clemson White House feast as being an admirable one. In fact, he could, but the bad news for QSRs is it was not from a QSR, like the brands that served the athletes their offerings at the president's gathering. 

Instead Powills pointed to the response from the triple Michelin-starred Chicago fine dining brand, Alinea,which jumped in to the social media banter with an offer from owner, Nick Kokonas, who quickly responded:

"I could care less about college football. But I'm personally inviting the Clemson Tigers team and coaches to Chicago to experience what an actual celebration dinner should be," he tweeted, adding,  "I'm not joking. Someone let them know what The Alinea Group does. It'll be worth it @ClemsonTigers."

Kokonas manages to elevate the brand through its generosity, even while acknowledging what is a near sin in the U.S.  —that he doesn't care about football. The avalanche of respectful news coverage that followed for his brand is likely worth well into the millions of dollars. And he did it, Powills said, by putting "the focus ... on  a better celebration (more than being) political."

Photo: iStock

About S.A. Whitehead

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Pizza Marketplace and QSRweb editor Shelly Whitehead is a former newspaper and TV reporter with an affinity for telling stories about the people and innovative thinking behind great brands.