Valley PR Blog

Light Rail Press Conference Was a Solid PR Play

By Dan Wool on January 16th, 2008 In Best Practices

If negative, “seen it with our own eyes” rumors were swirling about your upcoming, very public, multi-billion dollar product launch and credible journalist inqueries were starting to come in about it, what would you do?

This was what Valley Metro was faced with yesterday when about a dozen cracks were discovered in the light rail track. Fortunately, they were prepared, gathered the facts from their operations, kept their cool and called a press conference with Metro CEO Rick Simonetta and other key officials to break the bad news themselves.

Generally, I hate press conferences, but used judiciously when you’re a very public entity, they work. This one was a case study because operations and PR response matched.

Metro simply told the truth. Yes, they ripped off the bandaid, but in so doing, they took control of the media and the message. Every outlet in town covered the story at once, so they got all the right info out there. By doing so, they ensured that technical stuff got correctly explained that any bad stuff was essentially a one day story. Certainly, it deflated any resulting public concern if the “rumor story” was reported.

And with the cracks not threatening the fall opening of the lines, they were even able to get a positive “committment to safety” message across.

It’s encouraging to see that our soon to be “world class” light rail is getting some world class PR consultation.

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