Mythologizing Tylenol
Ah, the 1982 Johnson & Johnson Tylenol recall.
The model for successful crisis communications to which we all aspire; to which a generation of crisis managers and business school professors give oblation.
The New York Times thinks so, too, comparing J&J’s recent recall woes to its standard-setting recall in the year I was born. Note: Those two events are not connected. As far as I know.
Many “analysts” the NYT spoke with seem to think J&J fumbled the ball here and didn’t live up to its brand promise. One of the world’s most trusted brands failed to repeat its proven model, they say. Perhaps this is true, as evidence surfaces showing that J&J knew of complaints about some of its over-the-counter medicines many months before the FDA issued its warning and the company initiated the recall.
But such a comparison is unfair, and propped up by a faulty foundation. What this article fails to mention is that the 1982 recall came as a result of madmen lacing Tylenol with cyanide, not J&J’s negligence. It’s much easier to “do the right thing” when reasonable people can see extenuating external forces cause the crisis in question, not poor management or specious science. In the current case, it doesn’t seem the recall was caused by any such forces.
I wonder at what point, if ever, the 1982 recall will cease to be a relevant and contemporary model of crisis communication. Will advancing technology, speed of communication, social media, and fragmented news render it an obsolete case study? Or will it continue to be mythologized and live on in perpetuity?
This is the blessing for J&J: Decades after the 1982 recall, it still reaps brand benefit for a job well done. And this is the curse: It will likely never live up to the legend again.
Mike Sacks can be reached at msacks@mww.com.
