Tylenol Crisis Management Case Study

Tylenol’s crisis handling strategy

Baburam Parajuli

Managerial Communication

2016-12-18

Mrs. Ujeena Rana

Presidential Business School

Westcliff University

Abstract

This research aims to give a brief overview about the “Johnson and Johnson Tylenol Crisis” and its crisis management strategies. It gives an outline about the media counter attack for Tylenol case regarding the claims that can be explained, claims that can be admitted and claims that can be refuted. The study also gives brief information about the methodology used by Tylenol’s crisis management team for minimizing the negative feedbacks related to the crisis.

Tylenol crisis management and media counter attack

Crisis

Crisis is a simply a threat to the organization.

Crisis management team is a group of intellectual individuals, basically formed for protecting the organization against the negative effects of crisis. A well organized crisis management team requires representation from different groups like legal department, facility management, information technology, human resources, risk management, real estate management, corporate security and public relations. Crisis management team responds immediately to warning signals of crisis. They help to develop relevant strategies to overcome the worst situations.

Spokesperson

A Spokesperson is a person chosen by a company for promoting its brand through public announcements and endorsements. The spokesperson must possess good communicating skills to interact with the audience, customers, media etc in polite manner. The spokesperson must have the ability of convincing and persuading his/her audience and defending the organization at its bad times. The role of spokesperson is to address its customers, stakeholders and external audience with the overall activities of the organization.

The corporate spokesperson effectively communicates the company’s message to the community in several cases; while introducing a new product line or commenting on pending government regulations. (Troester,

Claims that can be admitted:

Media would question about the packaging systems effectiveness before the crisis had occurred. They would claim Tylenol for not concerning its focus more on the packaging process of the product.

The triple safety seal packaging applied by Tylenol after the crisis occurrence was the best tamper resistant packaging process. The Tylenol would admit the claim in this context as the crisis would not probably have occurred if the company had paid its concerned more on its products packaging section.

Conclusion

Crisis is any event occurred unnoticeably. Crisis if not well managed can lead a market leading company to bankruptcy. At the time of crisis, the best way to deal with it would be by establishing a crisis management team and focusing on the strategies that helps to win the forgiveness of the customer. A company even at the time of crisis can win the belief of public and can regain its reputation in the market by the use of effective crisis management strategies along with the back support and sound relation with the media. References

John P. McCray, Juan J. Gonzalez, John R. Darling, (2011) "Crisis management in smart phones: the case of Nokia vs Apple", European Business Review, Vol. 23 Iss: 3, pp.240