Like anyone with taste, I’m obsessed with HBO’s phenomenal series Succession. Much like my love of reality television, there’s something undeniably thrilling about watching terrible people repeatedly do terrible things to one another. Given that the characters of Succession are all their own unique strain of asshole, it’s hard to have sympathy for them. However, throughout the series there’s one group of people who I consistently feel sorry for – The Waystar Royco PR team.
As someone who works in PR, I can’t help but thing WTF would I do if I was unlucky enough to have clients like the Roys. Season 3 has put a particular spotlight on how the Roy’s leverage PR in their respective bids for power. As the son of a media scion, Kendall knows the importance of creating a public narrative, so positioning himself as the white knight is a savvy move, as Harpers Bazaar notes in their story about Kendall’s performative feminism. He hires powerful women to lead two key areas for him, public relations (Berry Schneider) and the legal battle (Lisa Arthur) — taking a page from the real-life playbook of both Harvey Weinstein and Jian Ghomeshi, who surrounded themselves with women in their defense against sexual assault allegations. (Logan, no surprise, wants to do the same thing.) Still, despite hiring women at the top of their fields, Kendall still exercises his power by talking over them, outright ignoring them, barking orders at them, and failing to even say thank you.
The Ringer interviewed several PR experts on how they’d rank the PR strategies driving the various Roy family members, some highlights include:
- On Kendall’s press conference at the season 2 finale: It was not clear to me what he was trying to accomplish. You just damaged your entire brand, and not in a way that couldn’t be undone by his father in a whole host of ways, not least of which is if he rallies his family around him. They could all basically gang up on Kendall. They could say he’s a drug addict and has damaged himself with his family so much and now he’s just lashing out. There are a lot of ways they could manage that if everyone is not on Kendall’s side.
- On Kendall’s defense against Logan: Be prepared. I’d rather know anything he can foresee his father putting out there. Develop messaging and responses. For instance the drug use: Have his messaging in place; talk about how he went to rehab. If he’s attacked that he was disappointed that he was passed over, he could develop messaging that he’s always had the best interests of the shareholders. He has a fiduciary obligation as an officer of the company. His father is self dealing. He’s got a conflict of interest. Whatever. Come up with messaging. Be prepared because you don’t want to get a call at 4 o’clock from The New York Times or The Wall Street Journal asking these tough questions and not having these responses ready to go.
- On how Kendall should address his drug use to the media: That whole story line has changed dramatically in recent years. [Addictions] are so uninteresting to people because it’s so commonplace. We’re fortunately in a time when mental health is something people are talking about. The stigma that would go along with having been an addict wouldn’t be as shocking; I don’t think it would move people as much. If that person is spiraling out of control still or had relapsed and it was somehow impairing their ability to function or putting others at risk—those things, yes. But that can backfire too. It’s enough for them to garner sympathy, whereas 10 years ago it would be a no-brainer way to do someone in. Not the case today.
