Crisis Communications is something no company or public relations professional wants to happen to them, but in most cases, at least 1 crisis is going to happen eventually. That is why all PR people need a plan in place to know what they will do in case there is an accident or crisis that needs to be dealt with.
Johnson & Johnson's Tylenol crisis is one of the most famous crisis communication cases studied. The way they dealt with it is said to be one of the best public relations crisis communication plans in history!
The Story of the Tylenol Crisis
In 1982, it was reported that 7 people had died after using Extra-Strength Tylenol in Chicago. The deaths were investigated and it was determined that the Tylenol capsules were laced with cyanide. The amount of cyanide in the capsules was 65 milligrams, 10,000 times more poison then was needed to kill a human being.
After the cause of the deaths was determined, the nation was warned to stay away from Tylenol until the problem was fixed. It was made clear that the tampering of the capsules was not from any of the plants. A spokesperson for J&J told the media of their strict quality control and that the poisonings could not have been performed at the plant. It was determined that the tampering had to have happened once the shipment of the Tylenol was in Illinois.
What did J&J do?
Tylenol had 37% of the market, it was the #1 alternative to aspirin. It was a huge money-maker for Johnson & Johnson, so they knew they had to react quickly.
J&J put customer safety first before their company's financial issues and and profits. They immediatly warned all customers via the internet to not consume any Tylenol product, and not to resume using it until the problems were resolved. They recalled all Tylenol capsules from the market, as well as stopped production and advertising. The recall included around 31 million bottles of Tylenol, worth around 100 million dollars.
Johnson & Johnson also created relationships and worked closley with the Chicago police, FDA, and FBI so they could have a part in the search for the person who tampered with the Tylenol. They also immediatly put up a $100,000 award for the killer. This showed they were concerned for the customers and wanted to make sure nothing further happened and they would do anything they could to stop anything else from happening. It showed they cared.
Tylenol also decided they would exchange all Tylenol capsules that had already been purchased for Tylenol tablets. Full price coupons were offered to consumers who wished to replace Tylenol that had been recalled. A new Tylenol bottle was created with which was a triple sealed, tamper resistant bottle. They also changed the label on the pill bottle to "Do not use if red neck wrap or foil inner seal is broken." The company then introduced a caplet, a solid form of the drug, in place of the capsule.
The PR people at J&J handled this crisis the best that they could. Even though they knew the crisis was no their fault, they did all they could to help their customers even though it cost them millions of dollars. They knew they had react quickly and to start investigating the problem so that it could be fixed and people would start to trust them again. I wouldn't do anything differently because they did everything the way they should. They put their customers and the community first and didn't take any blame but knew it was their responsibility to help and figure out what went wrong and to do something about it. This is the way all PR departments should handle a crisis.
Johnson & Johnson has more than 250 operating companies that manufacture and market thousands of branded health care products in hundreds of categories.
