Tag: charlotte

Recently, a posting for a job as a “Public Relations Specialist” for Sycamore Brewing popped up online.

The listing, now classified as “expired,” described one of the job duties as “maintaining” — (italics are mine) — “a positive public image for the company,” and noted a pay range of $150,000 to $250,000 per year.

I didn’t apply.

But to those who did, or gave it at least halfway-serious consideration, I’m sure you must have thought in your heart of hearts that the notion of restoring a positive public image to the company seems not just daunting but impossible.

For anyone. For any amount of money.

The damage is done, and the damage appears to be darn-near apocalyptic.

That’s what being arrested on charges of statutory rape involving a 13-year-old girl will do to a business, especially if the individual being accused — in this case, Justin Tawse Brigham — happened to be a co-founder and co-owner of said business.

Look, I’m a journalist, not a publicist. But there’s a reason so many journalists transition mid-career into public relations jobs: the money. Oops, I meant: because no one better understands how to deal with the media — to manipulate the media — than people with a lot of journalism experience.

I wonder whether whoever has been handling the PR for Sycamore up to this point ever worked in a newsroom. I feel like the answer might be “no.”

I say this because a truly media-savvy PR person would have realized what to do in a situation this horrific days if not weeks ago.

It’s a very old way of thinking, when you’re trying to do damage control amid a nuclear-level public-relations disaster, to hide the person at or near the center of the firestorm — in this case, Sarah Taylor, the other co-founder, who is now apparently the brewery’s sole owner (as well as in the process of divorcing Brigham).

To warn them, Keep your mouth shut. You can only make things worse.

In the modern, social-media-driven world — which we’ve now lived in, by the way, for quite a long time — you make things worse by staying closed-off when you’re getting lit up for a public mistake, failure, or scandal. Because then you’re allowing the internet, and the comments section, and idiots on X to control the narrative.

What is the prevailing narrative? Well, it involves perceptions along the lines of these, for starters:

• We know Taylor has claimed that Brigham has “divested all of his interest” in the company, but we find it hard to believe that he’s not still benefitting from Sycamore’s profits.
• We thought the initial response made Taylor look pretty self-centered. Only after the backlash did she express sympathy for the victim and her family.
• Was she REALLY not aware of her husband’s inappropriate behavior? And boy, now those risqué can designs are taking on a whole new meaning for us…

And these days, prepared statements have a very hard time shifting the narrative. These days, prepared statements — like the one Taylor put out Tuesday afternoon, to announce that the flagship taproom in South End is closing next week but “reopening in the new year” — don’t feel like they come from the heart so much as they feel like they come from ChatGPT.

Besides, at this point, Sycamore could issue a thousand statements expressing compassion for the 13-year-old victim and the girl’s family, and a thousand mea culpas for Taylor’s clumsy initial reaction, and a thousand assertions that Taylor doesn’t have the business-first mentality that critics think she has. But it’s difficult to imagine any of that changing the casual observer’s current perceptions.

The brewery’s brand has been sullied by Harvey Weinstein-level ick that the PR response so far has just made worse.

It’s for that reason, I think — strictly from a public-relations perspective — she can only benefit from coming out from behind the statements, from being open, and honest, and dignified, and from demonstrating humanity, and humility, and empathy.

(By the way: Yes, like many reporters in town, I’ve attempted to reach out to Taylor unsuccessfully.)

Here’s a great, recent example: Kristin Cabot, of Coldplay couple fame.

She didn’t owe the world an explanation. It was her personal business, albeit unfortunately made public world-wide. She didn’t have to talk to The New York Times about her indiscretions and the tailspin it sent her professional and personal lives into. But she did, and I’m sure I’m not the only one who read the story and now has a newfound (and tremendous amount of) empathy for her; and now feels at least a little bit of remorse for laughing along with all the memes and parodies.

Cabot’s granting of access to that Times reporter, her show of vulnerability, that’s how you turn yourself into a human being, and begin to truly pivot away from being a punching bag.

I have another example, too, and it’s one that hits even closer to home.

Back during the height of covid, the Olde Mecklenburg Brewery thumbed its nose at social-distancing recommendations and crammed upwards of a thousand people into its beer garden for its annual Mecktoberfest.

And they got hammered.

In the aftermath, I persuaded owner John Marrino — who did NOT initially want to discuss the foul-up with anyone, for any reason — to talk to me about how it all unfolded, and what he was doing about the brutal backlash.

When he sat down with me in the taproom (separated by six feet, of course), he told me this:

“The business was built to benefit the community, in many ways. We’re a manufacturing company. We take raw materials and add value to them to make beer here. We sell that beer in town. All that money that comes to us, most of it gets pumped right back into the local community, through our employees’ salaries and benefits.

“We deal with dozens of local vendors. All that money goes to them and goes into their families and gets recycled in the community. So, having local companies — local manufacturing companies like the breweries here in town — is great for the local community, in so many ways. And it’s a shame to have that tarnished because we screwed up.

“I regret it,” Marrino said, “and I hope over time, people forget about it. I mean, I don’t expect coronavirus to go away anytime soon, but once it does, I hope people remember the good things we’ve done, and not so much that one incident on a Saturday night.”

Now, despite the situation involving a brewery and an alarming error in someone’s judgment, there are all kinds of ways his situation was different from Sycamore’s.

It’s apples and oranges. Or, pilsners and stouts.

So why bring this up? Because when I sat down to write this, I thought about Marrino almost immediately. Because he could have just put that all in a statement. But if he’d put it in a statement, I wouldn’t have been able to see the tear spilling down his cheek as he told me all that.

Anyway, Sarah Taylor, this is all just my completely unsolicited opinion. If you really are trying to keep Sycamore going, opening yourself up at least gives you a chance at swinging people back over into your corner.

Hopefully, whoever you’ve decided to pay $150,000 to $250,000 will, in return, give you the same two cents.