In the PR world, we’ve all heard about the 1982 Tylenol crisis and how it should be regarded as the ultimate model for corporate responsibility and crisis control. The handling of the crisis — in which seven people were killed upon ingesting cyanide-laced Tylenol — is reified amongst crisis managers as the standard in damage control. In reality, many organizations who’ve attempted to repeat Johnson & Johnson’s exact crisis management strategy have not been met with the same degree of success. While there are several reasons for this, we only need to look to one key explanation to understand why companies need not attempt to copy/paste the Tylenol framework in 2020; the nuances of the current digital era are simply not as accommodating of this framework.
To be clear, the Tylenol case has its clear merits — the organization quickly recalled its product and appeared genuinely empathetic and concerned for the safety of consumers. As a result of its solid handling of the crisis, the business saw a rather swift bounce-back in performance and continues to enjoy a sizeable market share today. While this was an extraordinary feat for the pre-digital era, it is difficult to gauge just how different the outcome would’ve been in today’s online era but one can be quite confident that the outcome would indeed have been less favorable were the same approach applied, due to a variety of factors outlined below:
- The ‘instant recall’ wasn’t actually instant, which would have caused a backlash from an anxious and speculative online public. While the case is frequently lauded for instant product recall, it actually took eight days from when the first deaths were announced for J&J to recall the product (it was actually retailers who removed the products from shelves a day after). This would’ve been too long in today’s digital landscape where scrutiny is heightened and public voices are amplified – every second counts. In the time taken to pull the product, a narrative that the company was prioritizing profits over human safety could have easily emerged (as we saw with Boeing last year).
- The initial denial that cyanide was being stored at a J & J facility would have done greater damage to its credibility in today’s landscape. J & J confirmed through a press release that cyanide was stored at one of its facilities — next to a manufacturing plant — for testing. The trouble is that a representative had initially denied this when asked by a reporter some days prior (presumably due to a lack of information). While the reversal was briefly embarrassing, J & J’s openness made up for any damage to its credibility and its cyanide stock was eventually ruled out as a source of the poisoning. However, it cannot be presumed that today’s media landscape would be so forgiving of the blunder. Today, the reversal would likely have been extremely damaging due to the more adversarial nature of PR. For many, it would have been a foregone conclusion that the denial constituted an attempt to obscure the truth. Furthermore, with opponents possessing the tools to launch wide-reaching, coordinated digital disinformation campaigns, a sizeable portion of the public could have been effectively convinced that the cyanide from J & J’s facility did play a role and that the company was attempting a cover-up. As far-fetched as this may have seemed in 1982, we’ve seen disinformation campaigns that were built on flimsier conspiracy theories, thrive in more recent times. The point is, in today’s digital climate, blunders are more amplified and create room for greater damage.
- Anti-Corporate activism creates a more hostile environment for modern corporations than in the pre-digital era. Realistically, your reputation before a crisis even hits can have a great deal to do with how well the public receives your efforts. In 1982, Johnson & Johnson had (and still continues to enjoy) a favorable public image, placing it at an advantage. While it may be true that the company would still be able to trade on its good name today as it’s done so many times in the past, the Tylenol episode in today’s context would to some degree be complicated by the prevalence of anti-corporate sentiment that’s grown in the online era. In particular, public perception of multinational pharmaceutical companies is at an all-time low as they are frequently seen as greedy and unethical. While it’s difficult to estimate the degree to which this is significant, it’s certainly worth noting that larger corporations today will need to expend a greater amount of reputational effort to see the same degree of bounce-back as J & J did in 1982.
Johnson & Johnson’ s handling of the Tylenol crisis is rightly upheld as a beacon in crisis management because of the proactiveness of the response. However, this does not make the case a one-size-fits-all solution. In today’s digital era, the case is even less applicable as a template due to the realities of our modern age. While there are certainly still core lessons to be taken from the crisis response of Johnson & Johnson, crisis communicators in the digital age should be cautious to avoid relying solely on the 1982 strategy.
CONTROL, by Fiayo. 