Take lemons and make lemonade. That’s what they always say about bad PR. “Look at this face; the face of leadership.” Carly Fiorina fights Donald Trump’s insensitive statement last week, “Look at that face; would anyone vote for that?” by making it the heart of her new paid advertising campaign.
Brilliant. I’m not going to vote for Fiorina, but she’s got my thumbs up on a job well done by keeping humor in the face of attacks.
Let’s look at the ‘faces’ today making lemonade out of lemons in the news today:
- Dallas Cowboys making the best of it while receiver Dez Bryant gets surgery,
- Scotland welcomes refugees; other European countries don’t see opportunity,
- Northern California raging wildfires cause people to contemplate what’s truly important: life & survival,
- Bacon. Need I say more?
When I media train clients at our PR firm, Wasabi Publicity, I remind them to do one of two things with the media: 1) educate and 2) entertain. When faced with hard news, how can you respond with humor or if it’s not a laughing situation, respond by educating people how to overcome and turn surviving into thriving? When you speak up, people will look at your face. Before you open up your mouth, rescue it first with “not too tart not too sweet” lemonade from those lemons you face. Remember this Country Time lemonade commercial?
