In 1982, perhaps the most famous instance of consumer-product crisis management
ID: 470138 • Letter: I
Question
In 1982, perhaps the most famous instance of consumer-product crisis management occurred. Seven people died after taking poisoned Tylenol capsules. Review the story at: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/the-tylenol-murders
Johnson & Johnson immediately took 31 million bottles of its Tylenol brand off the shelves and stopped production and advertising. The company worked with police and offered a $100,000 reward. The killings remain unsolved.
Eventually, the company reintroduced Tylenol with new tamper-resistant packaging. The brand recovered, and the company’s response is regarded as one of most successful examples of crisis management in marketing history.
In contrast..
The BP Gulf oil spill is often talked about as a PR disaster. This site has a great write-up, including a five point summary of "lessons learned": http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2010/07/5-digital-pr-lessons-from-bps-oil-spill-response193/
How is it that these two incidents were handled so differently by both companies?
Is this a case of an older time (Tylenol in 1982) and less complicated communication channels, or does there seem to be a fundamental difference in how each company reacted?
Explanation / Answer
In 1982 Johnson & Johnson (J&J)'s Tylenol contamination issue was handled more effectively by then CEO James Burke than that by the BP CEO Tony Hayward regarding the 20th April 2010 oil spill in Mexican gulf. James Burke was a effective leader to understand the gravity of the situation who reacted immediately with honesty by addressing to the public about the incidence and way forward. He being informative to the people to avoid rumours, protecting the company's image of socially responsible. The CEO then drafted a well thought action plan, it recalled all the drugs from the market which was contributing almost 5th of the profits, and then relaunched the same popular OTC drug with tamper proof packaging. This helped rebuilt faith in the brand that really cares for the people.
Whereas, BP CEO Tony Heyward's reacted quite differently to the accident on 20th April 2010 when the oil rig exploded killing 11 men working on it and spilling 5 million barrels of oil in the gulf of Mexico. The CEO was more interested in defending the company than its image. He indulge in a debate about the no. of barrels spelt instead of coming out with a contingency plan. His actions led to declare him as am irresponsible leader in BP. Enjoying a holiday the yaught, not responding to the reporters and even BP's PR team members when they really need him to support in disaster manegement are the symptoms of unaccountable leadership.
Although these two issues were different and occurred at different times. J&J's Tylenol issue was very old when communication channels were limited so the propagations of information was quite slow. Whereas, BP's oil spill happened in 2010 when the internet was the strogest enemy of BP in case of spreading rumours, sharing realtime information. BP has almost no control over communication channels as that J&J had in the old times. Besides, contingency plan for J&J was much more simpler where it had to recall the drugs from the market through the distribution channels it controls and then redistribute with new packaging and then advertising through controlled communication channel. For BP, it was quite a task to clear the mess in the gulf of Mexico which Jeopardize the ecology of the region. Cleaning the oil spilled was not it was competent in doing. So it was a two way game to handle the communication channels and to clean the mess up.