198: Can You Tell Me How to Get (Out of a Crisis) Sesame Place

Come and play. Everything's not okay. We want to go now to a video that went viral at a Sesame street parade. One of the characters appears to ignore two black children at the event. Local tense Gio Signares is in the newsroom with the apology and new changes for the staff. Janice Christie, Quick and fierce reaction, not just from the mother of those children, but from activists and others across the country. Now the theme park, vowing to try and make sure something like this doesn't happen again. Welcome to the Indestructible PR podcast, where we use current events and tested media and PR strategies to help prevent or manage a crisis and build an indestructible reputation. Oh, someone did something and then someone filmed it and then someone shared it and now it's viral. The trust is gone and so is your credibility due to the incident happening on video this week. How to reclaim control of your reputation with an effective media response. Rosita's reputation has been ruined along with Sesame Place in Philadelphia and Sesame Street. What happened, what went wrong, and what can we learn moving forward? In a Philadelphia area theme park based on the popular children's television show, one that started at the same time I started Sesame street, it came under fire after a mother shared a video of one of the performers dressed like a beloved character appeared to dismiss her daughter and her niece. Made worse, they were black, and that incident went viral. The video in question that you all saw showed the performer dressed as Rosita, apparently gesturing a no with a waving of the hands to the two girls. If that weren't bad enough, it came just after the character was high fiving and happily interacting with several other guests. So on the podcast this week, let's discuss what happened and the response, why the response didn't work and why they needed a second response to clean it up and a framework for writing an ideal response. If you didn't see the video, you can see the clip in the show notes. But it's sad, you know, for any parent or for anyone who cares for kids or a caregiver of kid. Well, really, anyone who has a heart seeing two young kids excited to see a character in a parade and. And to watch a character ignore kids and then the immediate look on their faces when they were dismissed. It's heartbreaking. But it also makes for perfect video to go viral to prove a point. And that video sums up, really, my passion project in pr. How's that for alliteration? Is dissecting what. What happens when a video like this goes viral and why that response to a digital crisis needs to be precision, like in satisfying the needs of stakeholders, all of them, starting first with the person in this case who is a victim. First, I want to read the response. What happened, where it was posted, just like the timeline of the events, like the golden hour of this crisis. What went well, what did not go so well, and what you as a listener can learn if you're ever dealing with this incident in your organization. If you have your viral moment and then some of the little clues and signs that I noticed for why I think this was such a bad response. Okay, so first let's talk about the initial response. We had the video come out. We've all seen it. And if you haven't, like I said, the link is in my show notes. But also just Google Sesame Place, Google Sesame Street, Google Rosita. Poor Rosita. Let's talk about the first reputation that has been harmed, that of the character Rosita from Sesame Street. If you Google Rosita and Sesame street, all you see now are stories about the Rosita character, some adjacent Rosita dissing these two girls. So now Sesame street has a problem on their hands. Now, Sesame street had nothing to do with this crisis other than licensing the name Sesame street to a company that has created Sesame Place. So let's start with Sesame Place. Let's just get a little background there. I already stated how much I disliked Sesame Place. Now, it could have been because of the time that I was going with my kids. They were very, very young and I wanted to love it. I'm a huge Sesame street fan. My two favorites. I am a Grover person, Die Hard Grover fan. Also Kermit the Frog. And I was young, I wanted to be a reporter. And Kermit Frog. Hi ho, Kermit the Frog here, you know, reporting. Those were two of my favorites. And I was really let down at Sesame Place. Like, you expect the level of Disney, but it's not Disney because Sesame Place is owned by the chain that owns SeaWorld. So it's owned by SeaWorld Parks and Entertainment. So we're not talking Disney level. We're talking SeaWorld, Discovery Cove, Busch Gardens, Water Country. So that's the level of park that we're getting there. So we're just going to get a different response. Also, when the response was released, and I will get into the response in a moment, the context of that response seemed very like, uncorporate. Like, like it was written in a way where I thought it felt internal. Okay? Like they didn't bring in a Crisis person. They didn't bring in a PR firm or they didn't have a PR firm on hand. It felt like someone internally wrote the statement. And when I went to LinkedIn to see if I could figure out the person behind the statement, I saw a couple names. I'm not going to say their names, but two people, a Park president and a Park president and general manager. Both were of the age where they were older, which would explain one of the things I saw in the statement. One person had been there for 42 years. That's a lot of experience. That's a lot of experience. But it could be an indicator that this person, if they were involved in this incident, that, that their response acumen may not have been one from 2022, maybe more from 2002. Perhaps it was not a response that you would see out of a high level PR crisis firm. And then another person had been there since 2017, but noting both of them were probably the park president, gm may have been Gen X, baby boomer, and the other one was definitely a baby boomer. Okay. And here's why this matters. Because even when you looked at their LinkedIn, at both of these people, there wasn't a profile photo attached to either one. I don't want to say that there was antiquated thinking there and I also don't want to directly blame them because again, we don't know who wrote what or who did what. Behind the scenes at Sesame Place. We're just going through clues. But one of the clues that I see in writing that helps me decide or uncover who wrote a statement is I look for the writing and the writing of the statement. I'm just going to say it. I'm just going to come right out and say it. It's not great. It is not. The first statement that was written is not a great statement. I don't want to be the grammar police on this one, but if there's ever a time to get your writing right, this is the time when you've gone viral, when national news, international news, they're calling you directly, you know, you have to do it right the first time. And the statement. So I'm going to read through it. But one of the flags that I see is whenever there's a period and then a space and then another space that usually tells me it's someone of an older generation who wrote it. And then I take it to the next level that I think this is someone that may not understand the social media culture that can happen in a crisis or in A PR crisis. So that's one indicator there. And also the writing is. It wasn't written by someone who writes for a living. We'll just say it like that. I don't want to criticize because writing is this hard skill and it's only better with people who write for a living, okay? It just is. So if you have a different job and all of a sudden you have to write a statement, it's not easy to do. So I'm going to give that person the pass. This statement was written by someone, in my opinion, who does not write for a living. I'll just say that. But here is the first indication of what we're dealing with. So you go viral and I am noticing a trend is that when there is a viral crisis, companies only respond in kind. If there's a crisis happening from an Instagram video, they're only going to respond on Instagram. That's it. And the statement is going to be embedded in a social media post. So if you Google Sesame Place to get the statement from Sesame Place, you are not going to find it written anywhere. And how do I know this is because I wanted to copy and paste the statement and I couldn't because find it on Instagram. News stories had to show a clip from Instagram. I am not saying that this is a bad practice. It's kind of like eye for an eye, right? It's happening on Instagram, therefore we're only going to respond on Instagram. But the problem with that is you're creating a level of care, okay? You're showing your level of concern. And that level of concern is only Instagram. And there is not a name attached to the statement at all. It's generic. Who knows? Maybe Elmo wrote the statement. We don't know. No, it wouldn't be Elmo because he already had his PR crisis, didn't he? Let's see, it could be Ernie and Bert. Maybe Ernie wrote it and Bert is the one who decided to type it out and uses to space. Because after all, Ernie and Bert, they're the same age as me. Maybe that's what they did. But we don't know. We don't know because it's never been said. And that is strike two against. I could do that as a count. One, two. So one is they only responded on Instagram with this post embedded in an Instagram post. So that's number one. Number two, it wasn't well written. Okay? So that's number two. Number three, let's go into the actual wording. Of what we have here. So I'm just going to read the initial, initial statement because that's the one that I'm going to grade it on because they, they had a follow up statement. And that follow up statement was from someone who knows what they're doing. But we can only learn from the mistakes here. So the video goes viral. All right. And not for nothing, on Instagram four days ago, they post a photo of a mother holding her child on a merry go round. The mother and child are both black. Isn't that interesting? So they're addressing the issue by appropriating the crisis before they address the crisis strike. All right, here we go. Let's read it. Our brand, our park, and our employees stand for inclusivity and equality in all forms. You'll note the word and is used a lot in the statement. That is what Sesame Place is all about. And we do not tolerate any behaviors in that are contrary to that commitment. So let's just go to the writing here for a moment. Tolerate any behaviors. I probably wouldn't pluralize this. I would just say behavior kind of covers it that is contrary. Next, we also are, comma, and have always been comma, committed to making sure every family and every child has the best possible experience in our parks. And we are incredibly disappointed when that does not happen. So we are also and have always been, you know, maybe you want to just go with, you know, it has always been our commitment. But again, all right, next, regarding the incident yesterday. It's a lot of words to get to where they need to go, which is what happened. The costumes our performers wear sometimes make it difficult to see at lower levels, and sometimes our performers miss hug requests from guests. Okay, all right, so I can't, like, get the bad writing out of my head, but I'm going to have to. Now. Isn't Sesame street really isn't an educational program? Wasn't it one of the first things that we all saw growing up, people my age to learn how to read and write? And who knew? Who knew decades later that I would be dissecting, reading and writing on a Sesame street themed podcast? Again, a reminder. This is not Sesame Street. This is Sesame Place using the license of Sesame Street. Okay? So going back to this, remember that framework? The indestructible PR framework? The three steps here? The first step, you have to own it, and then you can explain it. And then you make a promise, right? And you have to fulfill that promise. The problem here, we're already a couple steps in and we are not Owning what happened. The mistake I say in these responses that you can make is if you start with step two instead of step one, which is owning it. Step two is explaining it. So here they are explaining what happened. That the reason why. I'm not going to say Rosita, she didn't deserve this. The person in the Rosita costume, why they overlooked these two girls is because sometimes, you know, when you wear a costume to interact with kids who are shorter than you, sometimes you don't see them. What? Okay, in a response, in a crisis, if you had to wear a hat, on the hat, on the brim of the hat, it says, what do reasonable people think? Okay, I'm picturing Kermit the frog now, when he is the reporter, you know, he's the press. He had the press on his hat. Just always think, what would a reasonable person think? What would a reasonable person believe? No reasonable person is going to believe that Rosita can't see kids. No reasonable person is going to believe that a costume designed to interact with kids with who are not tall and you can't see them. Totally unreasonable. Now, what is reasonable is, yes, there could be blind spots in a costume, sure. But there is going to be a line of sight where you're going to look down to see kids. And this Rosita character was slapping the hands and saying hello to everyone and then very abruptly stopped. Okay, so we're already hearing the mistakes and the why. The why, the why, the blaming, the excuses. The performer portraying Rosita characters confirm that the no hand gesture seen several times in the video was not directed to any specific person. So we didn't really see it several times. We just really saw it, like one colossal time. Rather, it was a response to multiple requests from someone in the crowd who asked Rosita to hold their child for a photo. No, comma, which is not permitted. Oh, my gosh. Either that was not permitted or, comma, which. But okay, see, again, this is not believable. It's not believable at all. So the mom had it on video. It's on video. We can see it. The job of a character is to interact. And the idea of someone asking Rosita, who's walking by very quickly in this video, to hold their child, that's not reasonable to believe that. Now, could it happen? Sure, it could happen. But think about all the times you've been to Disney, if you've been to Disney or. Or if you've been one of the people who have suffered through Sesame Place. Like, I Have how many people are thrusting their kid at a character saying, hold my kid in a parade. It doesn't happen. You don't see that. You don't see that. You want to know when you really don't see it? During a pandemic. Now, granted, Rosita, you know, was not wearing a mask. It wasn't a pandemic themed. You know, there are probably pandemic protocols in place, but really, just in this environment, no, you're not going to give a baby to a character. So it's not believable. It is not reasonable to assume that that is accurate. And also, the mother, Jody Brown, she was stated as saying in a news interview that that isn't what happened. She contradicted it. She said no one was standing next to her. There wasn't anyone asking Rosita to hold a child or to take a photo. And you want to know what? I believe her. I believe that 100%. All right, moving on. The Rosita performer did not intentionally ignore the girls and is devastated about the misunderstanding. I could partially believe the second half of that statement. We spoke to the family and extended our apologies and invited them back for a special meet and greet opportunity with our characters. You want to know what I would say to that? Hell, no. I got to come back to this place if it happened to me. You cannot pay me to go back to Sesame Place. Place for one. But why would you want to go back to that? No way. We apologize to these guests for not delivering the experience that they expected. And we commit to do our best to earn. To earn theirs, theirs and all guests visit and. Oh, gosh, the writing. Okay, I'm just going to stop right there. All right? So that statement, that was just a bad statement. Do you know why it's a bad statement as I read it? Now, granted, I cut it up and chewed it up, but you could just tell that's not a good statement. You add in there. The writing, the very. Just not good writing. And delivered in a way that missed a very important element of a response. Okay. And that is the element of care. Because the real crisis are these two girls that were completely dismissed. And they thought that a simple meet and greet was going to fix it. And that wasn't the entire problem. It wasn't just that Rosita walked by and dismissed these girls. Girls. It's that Rosita walked by two black girls who the character of Rosita dismissed. So what was missing? Any mention? Where is the learning and diversity? Where is the lessons learned in Inclusivity where is admitting that Sesame Place fell down in their commitment to recognizing all guests? They fell down. It wasn't in there. They tried to get away with a simple meet and greet. All right, so here in my work, this is where it all comes back to what I do. The victim. There were multiple victims in this crisis, not just the girl and not just the girl's cousin. Okay? Those were the first two victims. The third victim. Say it. The mother. Because, oh, my gosh, when your kid is overlooked, oh, don't ever piss off a mother. Oh, oh, oh, oh. You are in for it. You are in for it. And I'm saying this as a mother. So listen to this clip from the mother on cbs. This is Jody Brown indicating telling us why these crises happen. Take a listen.

As you can see, we were standing at the front of the parade where the parade first started. And as the character is coming down the street, he acknowledges and high fives the family next to us. In the video, you can see my children are, like, overly excited, reaching out their arm after he gives them the no hand gesture. He then moves to the family next to us and proceeds to hug another little girl standing next to us. And that it, like, made me mad.

I have said it time and time again. A PR crisis starts from the victim. This mom was mad, and she posted it on Instagram. And that's when it went viral. The crisis happened and it got away from them because what? The crisis was not a dismissal of guests. It was a diversity problem. This was about race. This was about the dismissal of two black children. And what else happened next? So by not addressing the elephant in the room. Is there an elephant character on Sesame Street? Oh, without addressing the Snuffleupagus in the room, when you don't address the immediate crisis, it creates like a schism. Okay, just think of this, just this little gap, if you will, where a crisis can just burrow itself in there and explode. Because now you're going to create all these other crises that it even bigger, in this case, all the other people who had videos of their kids being dismissed at Sesame Place. And these are not white kids being dismissed. This is a series of black kids being dismissed by characters at Sesame Place and repeatedly by the character Rosita. This is awful. It's awful. It's awful. Okay? That's what Sesame Place missed. That was the crisis. So they responded to the wrong crisis. Now, what they needed to do is get a hold of this. So in this golden hour of a crisis, if you don't show in the first 45 minutes, some commitment to care, that you care about the victim and what happened to them and other people like them, you're going to lose the crisis. And then in six hours, you've lost control of the crisis. You've lost the narrative of your own crisis, and people are going to take it from you. In this case on Instagram, was all the comments on Instagram from the woman. So let's just underscore Jody, underscore some of the comments that are on her post. That was so wrong. Poor baby girls. It's like I can see these two being my babies and this happened, it would set fire to my soul. At the same time, heartbroken for my children. Now what are we going to say to reconcile them unacceptable with three mad emojis? Hell to the no. I would have lay my hands on them. Damn that character to hell. Sesame Place, Shame. Little ones are never to blame. They were innocent and you were racist. Let's see the white little girl being hugged, then don't see it. So guess there's no proof. So there's where it is, folks. That's what happens. All these other people are going to bring the character to light. They all know it. So why is it that people on Instagram can figure it out in a second on a reply, what the problem is? They're blaming these two girls. They're blaming these two girls because they happen to make a gesture that Rosita character interpreted as wanting to be hugged. And Rosita was waving off someone else. Oh, such a mistake. Now, when you look at a response, these are some of the things that you need to show in a response. I mean, these are. You want to add these pieces and these elements in a response to be able to get you through those first 45 minutes to show that you care. So one is just acknowledgement. Again, step one, own it, own it. It is always number one. You have to show an awareness to the event or to the issue. And it has to be the right issue. Okay? You cannot create what you think is the problem. It has to be the problem that everybody else thinks is a problem, particularly the victim. No euphemisms, no blame. Okay? What you're trying to do is regain the trust of people from what happened to. You have to show you care. You have to show empathy. You have to show in this statement. If I wrote this statement, it would be about these two little girls. And anyone, no guest should be dismissed by a character. No one. 3. You have to show your values. You want to describe what the values are they did it. In the first statement, they were talking about the expectation of what people can expect. You know, when they go to Sesame Place, you know that they do stand for inclusivity and equality in all forms. However, the video shows that they don't. That was a problem. All right, next is the approach. What are you going to do to handle the response? Okay. What is the promise that you're going to make? What are you committed to do? We need to talk about policy. We need to talk about procedures. We need to talk about why this never would happen again. The statement needed to show care and concern right off the bat by acknowledging exactly what happened. And then it has to be a commitment that we are going to train all of our characters. We are going to do serious diversity and inclusion and equity training so this never happens again. They got it wrong. But then clearly they must have hired someone who came in and rewrote another statement. And the Molly Eagle Eye noticed something. This was written by a different person. We don't know who. So it could be from someone from the SeaWorld corporate or they could have brought in a crisis firm, frankly at this point. But we know it was someone else because there's one space after the period. Here's the statement. We sincerely apologize to the family for their experience in our park on Saturday. Oh, my gosh, Colin, we know that it's not okay Now, I didn't say this is a great statement. It's just saying that it's better. We are taking actions to do better. We are committed to making this right. We will conduct training for our employees so they better understand, recognize and delivered. No Oxford comma there. An inclusive, equitable, no Oxford comma and entertaining experience to our guests. For over 40 years, Sesame Place has worked to uphold the values of respect, inclusion and belonging. Okay, I'm going to go back. This isn't like really well written, but it's just a different person. We are committed to doing a better job, making children and families feel special, seen and included when they come to our parks. Yeah, here I thought this was going to be better. Yeah, it's not. One of the reasons why it is though is. So let's bring it through. The effective response. So one, we ask for the acknowledgment. Now, in fairness, because this is the follow up statement, they don't need to reiterate exactly, exactly what happened, but they start with an acknowledgment. We sincerely apologize to the family for the experience in our park. It's kind of like the Unsaid. So this is okay. I had just discussed in a TikTok, I had talked about, you know, apologizing and also in the previous podcast about why sorry isn't the same as apologize. That in a statement you want to use the word apologize because it does have more oomph to it. Sorry is just too diminished nowadays. It's been diluted in phrases and titles and. And I'm sorry, sarcasm. And it just doesn't work anymore. So when you're writing a formal statement, we want to use the word apologize. Are they showing empathy? Yes. You know, I kind of like that they say, and it's not okay. You know, they're kind of speaking at almost like a basic Sesame street level, which I'm kind of okay with this right now. If I think about it like that, it has to be plain spoken. Do they show the values? I mean, yes, they're talking about the values of respect, inclusion, belonging. And they wanted. And now are they going to describe the ways that they're going to handle doing this? Yes. We will conduct training for our employees so they better understand, recognize and deliver an exclusive, equitable and entertaining experience to our guests. So, yes, there they did it. But this should have been the first statement, not the follow up. Because if you're doing a follow up statement, that means you've lost the crisis. Now, in every podcast, I include an indestructible PR tip that will help build an indestructible reputation. If you are dealing with a viral crisis where you have a stakeholder who is very activist minded, doesn't mean that they need to be a part of an activist group for an activist cause. Just activist minded, meaning that there was an injustice that they want everyone to see and they want you to fix it. The indestructible tip is this is never dismiss the victim, ever. Especially if that victim is already on Instagram and they are already viral. If you've gone viral, you have already lost. If you want to listen for more tips on how to build an indestructible reputation, you can now listen to my book, Indestructible Reclaim Control and Respond with Confidence in a Media Crisis. It's now on audible and I know you all have free credits, so why not download it and give it a listen? That's all for this week on the podcast. Rosita, thank you for helping me this week on the podcast. It's time to reclaim your reputation. Gracias. Adios.