Johnson & Johnson Crisis Communications
Running head: JOHNSON & JOHNSON
Week 6: Case Study: Johnson & Johnson
Shawana Battie
Walden University
In 1982, Johnson & Johnson was a trusted company with a solid reputation. In September, the company faced a great challenge as bottles of Tylenol were laced with cyanide by an unknown source. Although, Johnson & Johnson had no crisis communications plan in place at that time, they embarked on a strategic plan to regain the trust of consumers and to avoid this type of crisis from happening again. This crisis labeled the Tylenol Murders forced Johnson & Johnson to form a crisis communications team with one overriding priority; too warn the public. Johnson & Johnson’s credo stated that the company had four responsibilities in the following order of priority: to the consumer, to the employees, to the communities, and to the stockholders (Fearn-Banks, 2011). Johnson & Johnson credo guided the team as they worked at saving the company’s image and reputation.
According to our textbook, the three points that made Johnson & Johnson successful at dealing with the crisis included being open to the media and the willingness to recall the product. I also think that Johnson & Johnson’s timely response played a part in why the company was successful at dealing with the crisis. When the company first learned of the crisis an immediate meeting between the company executives took place. It is my belief that due to nature of the crisis, a response to the deaths related to Tylenol operated on an as soon as possible basis. The executives all said it was a period of great fear (Fearn-Banks, 2011) because at that point, it was unknown as to how the capsules were tainted. A crisis communications team was formed to find out “what type of sickness they were dealing with” and James Burke approved the recall of Tylenol capsules from stores in the Chicago area. The crisis team did react quickly but as our textbook points out, speed increases risk.
Week 6: Case Study: Johnson & Johnson
Shawana Battie
Walden University
In 1982, Johnson & Johnson was a trusted company with a solid reputation. In September, the company faced a great challenge as bottles of Tylenol were laced with cyanide by an unknown source. Although, Johnson & Johnson had no crisis communications plan in place at that time, they embarked on a strategic plan to regain the trust of consumers and to avoid this type of crisis from happening again. This crisis labeled the Tylenol Murders forced Johnson & Johnson to form a crisis communications team with one overriding priority; too warn the public. Johnson & Johnson’s credo stated that the company had four responsibilities in the following order of priority: to the consumer, to the employees, to the communities, and to the stockholders (Fearn-Banks, 2011). Johnson & Johnson credo guided the team as they worked at saving the company’s image and reputation.
According to our textbook, the three points that made Johnson & Johnson successful at dealing with the crisis included being open to the media and the willingness to recall the product. I also think that Johnson & Johnson’s timely response played a part in why the company was successful at dealing with the crisis. When the company first learned of the crisis an immediate meeting between the company executives took place. It is my belief that due to nature of the crisis, a response to the deaths related to Tylenol operated on an as soon as possible basis. The executives all said it was a period of great fear (Fearn-Banks, 2011) because at that point, it was unknown as to how the capsules were tainted. A crisis communications team was formed to find out “what type of sickness they were dealing with” and James Burke approved the recall of Tylenol capsules from stores in the Chicago area. The crisis team did react quickly but as our textbook points out, speed increases risk.
References: Coombs, W. T. (2012). Ongoing crisis communication: Planning, managing, and responding (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Coombs, W. T. (2012). Reconsidering Johnson & Johnson’s Tylenol performance. Retrieved August 21, 2012 from http://prstrategyandapplication.wordpress.com Fearn-Banks, K. (2011). Crisis communication: A casebook approach (4th ed.). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.