The Most Bizarre Press Conference in PR History

The Four Seasons Total Landscaping press con­fer­ence… was weird.

After four years of scan­dals, the Donald Trump pres­id­ency slowly ended — just as the vote count star­ted to reveal Joe Biden as the next US president.

Even as a Swede, I closely fol­lowed the drama.
I knew we would be in for a slice of mod­ern PR history.

Here we go:

Giuliani’s Approach: Don’t Get Angry, Get Mad

On the park­ing lot out­side Four Seasons Total Landscaping in Philadelphia, the Trump cam­paign took to the make­shift stage to com­ment on the dire situ­ation for Donald Trump and his dwind­ling chances of remain­ing in office.

The press con­fer­ence was highly anti­cip­ated; it wouldn’t have been out­land­ish for any oth­er can­did­ate to con­cede at this point, but most of us knew that admit­ting defeat wasn’t exactly in align­ment with the administration’s playbook.

Instead, we got to see Trump’s law­yer, the former Mayor of New York, Rudy Giuliani, put on a show for the cameras:

Giuliani was rampant, scream­ing and aggress­ive. At one point, he even demon­strat­ively looked up into the sky, with his arms straight up as if on a cru­ci­fix, as he just went on to declare unsub­stan­ti­ated voter fraud across the nation.

Ending up without any tan­gible proof for Giuliani’s raging voter fraud claims, we who were watch­ing the press con­fer­ence from home were left with the simple real­isa­tion that the Trump cam­paign had screamed:

“Stop the count!” when they were in the lead,
“Count all the votes!” when they were behind, and
“Voter fraud!” when the res­ults were in.

Watching all of this unfold live, I scratched my head in bewilderment.

As one of three voter fraud eye­wit­nesses, Giuliani intro­duced “Philadelphia res­id­ent and GOP poll watch­er” Daryl Brooks. 

Like the oth­er two “wit­nesses,” Brooks spoke about hav­ing wit­nessed voter fraud without using those words or out­lining what he had seen.

My PR “spidey senses” made it dif­fi­cult for me to find Brooks cred­ible. Therefore, I wasn’t at all sur­prised when I later learned that Brooks was indeed some­thing of a char­ac­ter:

Brooks had been sent to pris­on in the 1990s for pub­lic mas­turb­a­tion and expos­ing him­self to two girls aged 7 and 11. Still, this didn’t stop him from run­ning for vari­ous offices, like the US Senate and the House of Representatives. 

Notably, Brooks always ran in New Jersey — nev­er in Philadelphia.

Huh.

But let’s back up a few hours.

Enter: Four Seasons Total Landscaping

That day, Trump tweeted about the press con­fer­ence at the posh Four Seasons Hotel in Philadelphia. However, a new tweet was sent out shortly after, cla­ri­fy­ing that the loc­a­tion was Four Seasons Total Landscaping.

So, the Trump cam­paign hos­ted its press con­fer­ence at a park­ing lot across the street from a crem­at­ori­um and next to a sex shop.

Right.

A PBS report­er called Four Seasons Total Landscaping and got the response that the Trump cam­paign wanted to use their park­ing lot because it was “secure and close to the I‑95.”

The Trump cam­paign explained that they had always inten­ded to host their press con­fer­ence at Four Seasons Total Landscaping; any men­tion of the Four Seasons Hotel was just an unfor­tu­nate com­mu­nic­a­tion error.

Sure.

Make America Rake Again

What about Four Seasons Total Landscaping? Well, the com­pany quickly took to selling t‑shirts and oth­er mer­chand­ise online:

“Make America rake again.”
“Trying to make America green again.”
“Lawn & Order!”

America is the land of oppor­tun­ity, so why not take your lem­ons and squeeze some PR juice?

And the inter­net sure had its fair share of fun, too.

There’s now an 11-mile char­ity run from the Four Seasons Total Landscaping to the Four Seasons Hotel in the city — the Fraud Street Run.

And Ochre Jelly went on to sug­gest the Lego set Definitely Winning:

And there’s an online peti­tion on Change​.org to add the Four Seasons Total Landscaping to the nation­al register of his­tor­ic places.

Now, all of this is hil­ari­ous.
And breath­tak­ingly incompetent.

Still, there’s much dark­ness to this whole cir­cus, too. Many have sug­ges­ted this was a fit­ting, poet­ic end­ing to per­haps the most con­tro­ver­sial US pres­id­ency ever.

A pres­id­ency that intro­duced con­cepts such as fake news and altern­at­ive facts.

We still don’t know how far Trump’s law­yers are pre­pared to push this agenda of try­ing to over­throw the demo­crat­ic pro­cess and keep power over the world’s most power­ful nation. Still, that should be more chal­len­ging than arran­ging a press con­fer­ence in Philadelphia. ¹Update: The Trump admin­is­tra­tion pushed the agenda to try to over­throw the demo­crat­ic pro­cess. On the 6^th of January 2021, after a Donald Trump speech, an angry mob of Trump sup­port­ers stormed the … Continue read­ing

All in all, this wasn’t just an epis­ode of Veep.
This was a slice of mod­ern PR history.

PR Resource: PR and Stoicism

Stoic Philosophy for Public Relations

I’m inspired by Stoicism — and intrigued by the idea of trans­lat­ing clas­sic­al Stoic vir­tues (wis­dom, cour­age, justice, tem­per­ance) and apply­ing them to pub­lic relations:

The Wisdom Pitch

“A Stoic is someone who trans­forms fear into prudence, pain into trans­form­a­tion, mis­takes into ini­ti­ation, and desires into under­tak­ing.”
— Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Tell PR stor­ies of how organ­isa­tions can be wise and over­come obstacles that have stopped oth­ers in their tracks. Convey PR mes­sages on how to apply wis­dom, know­ledge, and experience.

The Courage Pitch

“We can­not choose our cir­cum­stances, but we can always choose how we respond to them.”
— Epictetus

Tell PR stor­ies of brands that nev­er back down in the face of hard­ships that would des­troy oth­er organ­isa­tions. Convey PR mes­sages of how an organ­isa­tion can be right­eous even when storms are raging.

The Justice Pitch

“Concentrate every minute on doing what’s in front of you with pre­cise and genu­ine ser­i­ous­ness, ten­derly, will­ingly, with justice.”
— Marcus Aurelius

Tell PR stor­ies of how organ­isa­tions relent­lessly can strive for hon­esty and trans­par­ency — even when uncom­fort­able. Convey PR mes­sages about how all brands, without excep­tion, can rid them­selves of dis­hon­esty and incompetence.

The Temperance Pitch

“It’s not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, who is poor.”
— Seneca

Tell PR stor­ies of organ­isa­tions that strive for high­er val­ues in a world where all oth­er organ­isa­tions suf­fer short­sighted­ness. Convey PR mes­sages of organ­isa­tions pre­pared to abstain from short-term gains to make the world bet­ter for all.

Learn more: Stoic Philosophy for PR Professionals