Tylenol Case

Timeline
• 1879
– McNeil is founded when McNeil opens McNeil Pharmacy
in Philadelphia, where he manufactures and sells
medications to hospitals and doctors throughout the city
• 1933
– McNeil Pharmacy is incorporated as McNeil Laboratories
• 1955
– Tylenol Elixir for children introduced, available by
prescription only
• 1959
– Johnson & Johnson acquires McNeil Laboratories
– The following year Tylenol is approved for sale
without prescription
• 1976
– Tylenol Extra Strength tablets launched
– Tylenol line of products becomes the #1 brand of
OTC analgesic in the U.S
• 1982
– Launched the first safety sealed tamper resistant
packaging in response to a criminal tampering
incident with Extra Strength Tylenol
 Summary
• In 1982, Johnson & Johnson's Tylenol medication
commanded 35 per cent of the US OTC analgesic
market - representing something like 15 per cent of
the company's profits
• Unfortunately, at that point one individual
succeeded in lacing the drug with cyanide
• Seven people died as a result, and a widespread
panic ensued about how widespread the
contamination might be
• By the end of the episode, everyone knew that
Tylenol was associated with the scare
• The company's market value fell by $1bn as a result
• When the same situation happened in 1986, the
company had learned its lessons well. It acted
quickly - ordering that Tylenol should be recalled
from every outlet - not just those in the state
where it had been tampered with
• Not only that, but the company decided the
product would not be re-established on the
shelves until something had been done to
provide better product protection
• As a result, Johnson & Johnson developed the
tamperproof packaging that would make it much
more difficult for a similar incident to occur in
future.
https://youtu.be/l1R0EnzGB3I
 Crisis Response Strategies
• Forgiveness strategy for this crisis. Forgiveness
strategy seeks to win forgiveness from the various
publics and create acceptance for the crisis
• Sympathy strategy It wins support from the public
by portraying the organization as the unfair victim
of an attack from an outside entity. Johnson &
Johnson's willingness to accept losses by pulling
the Tylenol product developed sympathy with the
public (Berg & Robb, 1992)
• Remediation and Rectification, Remediation offers
some form of compensation to help victims of the crisis.
Johnson & Johnson provided the victim's families
counseling and financial assistance even though they
were not responsible for the product tampering.
Negative feelings by the public against Johnson &
Johnson were lessoned as the media showed them take
positive actions to help the victim's families.
• Rectification involves taking action to prevent a
recurrence of the crisis in the future. Johnson &
Johnson's development of Triple sealed packaging is an
example of rectification. They also developed new
random inspection procedures before the shipment of
Tylenol to retailers
 Learning
• The Johnson & Johnson Tylenol crisis is an example
of how an organization should communicate with
the various publics during a crisis.
• The organization's leadership set the example from
the beginning by making public safety the
organizations number one concern.
• This is particularity important given the fact that
• The personal messages with the media from
the CEO of the organization enabled Johnson
& Johnson to overcome this problem