Twin Peaks Shooting PR Crisis

By 2015-05-18Featured

It’s been 24 hours since the Twin Peaks shooting incident, and finally, we are beginning to hear Twin Peaks side of the story. How a company responds in these initial hours of a crisis is critical to the public’s opinion of a brand. That’s PR 101.

From what we are seeing as we track media coverage, the corporate and franchisee responses, Twin Peaks’ first comment was from corporate on Twitter about six hours after the incident. Not early enough in our opinion. Before Twin Peaks’ tweet, our team watched the story unfold on social media beginning a couple of hours after the incident.  We read Facebook posts from friends about staying away from the area and fatalities were confirmed.  We checked Twin Peaks Waco Facebook Page, but no posts about the tragedy. In fact, Twin Peaks Waco unpublished their FB page.

A local KXXV-TV reporter posted that a press conference would begin around 3:00.  We tuned-in for details from the Waco Police Department spokesman.  But we never expected this bombshell:  the restaurant had not cooperated with law enforcement.  Ouch. That Twin Peaks Waco had not posted to Facebook was peanuts compared to this. Then CNN told the world.  Now Twin Peaks is in full-tilt PR crisis mode, but they are nowhere telling their side of the story. [title size=”2″]National Media Coverage[/title] [separator top=”60″ style=”none”] During another afternoon press conference, the Waco PD spokesman called it “absolute fabrication” when responding to a statement from Twin Peaks about cooperating with law enforcement.   Why wasn’t a representative for Twin Peaks at these press conferences answering reporter questions themselves?  And all the while, Facebook was on fire with negative comments about the restaurant . After watching the final episode of “Mad Men,” and then going to sleep, all we had from Twin Peaks was that one-sentence tweet:  Our thoughts and prayers are with the families and victims of the tragedy at franchise partner’s restaurant in Waco. Okay, that’s nice TP, but what about the warnings from police?  Any comment on that? The PR crisis worsened the next morning when we read two news articles quoting Twin Peaks’ spokespersons: 5/18/15 The Wall Street Journal Twin Peaks Rick spokesman Van Warner [sic] said Sunday evening that the Waco location was operated by a franchisee, and that the company was looking into what occurred before the incident. “We are still in the process of investigating what took place ourselves,” he said, adding that he didn’t know the name of the location’s operators.  “We were shocked.”

A message posted on Twin Peaks Facebook Page Sunday said, “Our thoughts and prayers are with the families and victims of the tragedy.

5/18/15 Waco Tribune-Herald Brad Doan, general manager of the local Twin Peaks, said the restaurant did not have an immediate statement in response to the shootings or Swanton’s claim that Twin Peaks was not cooperative with police until after Sunday’s shootings.  Doan referred all questions to corporate management in Dallas, which could not be reached Sunday afternoon. But Rick Van Warner, a spokesman for the Dallas-based corporate franchisor, said the company is reviewing the circumstances surrounding the shooting is “seriously considering revoking” the Waco location’s franchise agreement. Van Warner said he could not address what the franchise owners “did or didn’t do leading up to this,” but added that the company is “very upset that clearly our standards and security were not upheld in this particular case,” he said. Later in the evening, Twin Peaks tweeted:  “Our thoughts and prayers are with the families and victims of the tragedy at franchise partner’s restaurant in Waco.”

 Twin Peaks Shooting PR Crisis Lessons

  • Be more protective of your brand — be on the scene and available to the reporters quickly after an incident takes place, especially when fatalities are involved (thugs or not).  Twin Peaks has dozens of other locations and franchisees who will suffer from the negative media coverage.
  • If Twin Peaks had a crisis communications plan and training, Brad Doan would have had a statement.
  • Doan should not have referred questions to corporate if corporate was not going to respond.
  • The public needs to hear both sides of the story from the beginning.  Twin Peaks spokespersons (local and national) should have been on the ground and involved in every Waco Police Department press conference.
  • Respond to the crisis on social media early on.  And don’t take down your social media networks.
  • Before you speak on behalf of a client, such as in Mr. Van Warner’s case, know the names of those involved and be more forceful in revoking a franchise license, then revoke it ASAP.
  • Local franchisees should heed the warnings and cooperate with local authorities despite any economic concerns to ensure public safety.
  • Franchisors not only need local level  plans in place, such as how to deal local authorities and crisis communications plans, they must train and test their franchisees to ensure they understand crisis plans and are champions for their communities. If not, corporate should swiftly revoke a franchisee license.

Okay, America is not a police state – yet. Twin Peaks Waco was perfectly within their rights to continue serving biker clientele despite warnings from the local police department that the situation had become volatile. However, now that a tragedy has occurred, Twin Peaks’ Waco franchisee and the Twin Peaks corporate must live with the consequences of downplaying local law enforcement’s advice to limit biker activity at its Waco location. The Waco Police Department is to be applauded for taking a bad situation and reacting in the best way possible to protect customers and neighboring business from collateral damage. Unfortunately, the way Twin Peaks and its PR team handled the first 24 hours of this tragedy may be lesson in what not to do.