Johnson and Jonson Crisis Analysis

Introduction

Crisis management is a part of every company strategy, and dates back close to a century. It is not that companies plan to use it, however, crises happen and the good companies will have a way to manage it and persevere. As long as companies are made up of human beings, there will be mistakes, controversies and blowups. (Welch, Jack Winning, Chapter 10 – Crisis Management) Employees make mistakes, unethical executives will cause controversy and in general, at some point in business you can count on something going wrong publicly. When a crisis does present itself, it is how and what the company does in those precious moments after initially being notified, that measure the effectiveness of their crisis management.

In almost all cases, a crisis is not planned. It is not a situation a company wants to find themselves in. In fact many times the crisis can be blamed on something other then the company itself. However, when a company finds themselves in those situations, traditional means of running and managing the business have to change. There are multiple audiences to address, different processes steps to follow and certain ways to communicate out to each of the company's stakeholders. Ethics and Candor also play a key role in the handling of the situation (JWMI Week 9, Lecture 1).

Thirty two years ago Tylenol and their parent company Johnson & Johnson faced a tragic crisis of their own. Over the course of a few days from late September to early October of 1982, Chicago Illinois saw the loss of seven people who passed away after taking Extra-Strength Tylenol capsules laced with 65 milligrams of cyanide. Extra-Strength Tylenol was the leading pain killer medicine at the time the deaths occurred, causing widespread fear and panic that the laced product was a nationwide problem. It is what Tylenol and Johnson & Johnson did next that saved their company and helped build them into the pharmaceutical powerhouse they are today.

The following three sections delve deeper into the analysis of this crisis communication. The initial section will look at the crisis situation and evaluate the ethical implications. The next section will analyze the how well they did as an organization to communicate during the crisis. It will consider their lines of communications, leadership roles, use of media and overall type of delivery style. The analysis will conclude with recommendations on improving the approach if it were to happen in modern day 2015.

Overview / Ethical Implications

At the time, the Tylenol brand was responsible for over 17 percent of the company's profits and over 30 percent of the US over the counter market. Marketers feared they would never recover from the incident (Andrews, R., Crisis communications and the Tylenol poisonings, 2005) In 1982, there was no email or social media therefore