A frantic call to 9-1-1 is never a positive thing! Especially, when the call involves a high profile athlete it is far from something that will just be brushed under the door. But as we’ve come to learn an extremely negative issue can turn into the most positive position as possible with the help of Public Relations.
On October, 8th 2013 crazed Nascar driver, Travis Kvapil “allegedly pulled his wife into a bedroom by her hair and struck her in the head as she tried to pull away…” (Pockrass, Travis Kvapil accused of hitting wife during domestic dispute, police say.) He was then charged with assault but released on a $2,000 bail early Wednesday.
Since 2001, the BK Racing and Dr. Pepper sponsored driver has been racing in the top three national series. During the time of the assault arrest Kvapil was set to race Saturday night at the Charlotte Motor Speedway with this event arising it was appropriate for the agenda setting form of PR to be used.
In the situation, Travis Kvapil, NASCAR, BK Racing and Dr.Pepper all can not ignore or favor the accident condoned by Kvapil, but they can take it as a learning experience and move on which is exactly what they did.
Nascar released this statement prior to the race, Saturday, October 12th, “NASCAR does not condone the actions with which Travis Kvapil has been charged and we are disappointed to learn of this incident. We have been in close communication with the race team and are in the process of gathering as much information as possible. NASCAR takes this matter very seriously and will continue to monitor the situation as it moves forward.”
On Thursday, BK Racing owner Ron Devine went onto release a statement to Fox Sports stating, “After discussions with NASCAR and the Kvapil family, BK Racing has elected to support Travis and his family. It’s the right thing for Travis and his family to let the system take its course. He has the ability to set aside the issues and focus, and he’s prepared to race this weekend.”
Travis Kvapil also released a statement explaining how embaressed and serious the situation is. In which this also demonstrated the agenda setting theory as he admitted that what he did was wrong but he wants to move forward with it and would appreciate the respect from his fans as it’s a family matter.
Fortunately, all 3 of these statements benefited Travis Kvapil, NASCAR, BK Racing and Dr.Pepper as a whole because the negative feedback after these statements was very limited. Autoweek goes onto justify this through the article, NASCAR fans appear to care little about domestic violence situation involving Travis Kvapil, where Mike Larson explains that fans are taking little of their criticism to social media outlets. With recent searches among twitter and facebook we are coming to understand that this circumstance has been turned into something extremely minor with the help of PR. There were only a dozen tweets regarding the topic on twitter along with the most recent update on facebook in regards to Burger King’s new “Satisfries” and nothing in correlation with Travis Kvapil.
This situation was handled overall very well by the people in charge of NASCAR, Dr. Pepper, BK Racing, and Travis Kvapil’s public relations. The unfortunate situation was reflective of the agenda setting theory as the PR committee made the audience see the key issues from a positive aspect rather then the negatives involved. By releasing their statements they took the side of admitting to the public that what happened was a mistake but they will do what they can to fix it. With the release of the statements the relationship of the organizations (BK Racing, NASCAR, etc.) and the public was directly shown as the statements were directed towards their audience and told the public exactly what they had planned to do remaining open and honest. By saying that they don’t condone the actions they connected with their audience and brought the severe situations to a simple level for them to trust and understand. By doing this they continued to hold onto the trust of their fans based upon the stable relationship built over the past several years.