Robert Andrews would eternally bear in mind when his telephone rang on Friday, September 30, 1982. He was assistant director for PR at Johnson & Johnson, whose ache reliever, Tylenol, was the most effective recognized over-the-counter drug in America. On the opposite finish of the telephone was a reporter from Chicago, on the lookout for a remark.
“He advised us that the health worker there had simply given a press convention—individuals have been dying from poisoned Tylenol,” Andrews recalled in a 1990 interview. “It was the primary data we had right here on this division. We advised him we knew nothing about it.”
Manufacturers dwell in terror of moments like these—a sudden debacle that places their title within the information, their repute in query, and their future unsure. Which is why, for Kenvue (the J&J spinoff that assumed custody of Tylenol in 2023), Monday’s White Home press convention should have felt just like the worst type of déjà vu.
Saying that the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) would advise girls to keep away from acetaminophen throughout being pregnant primarily based on a long-rumored however by no means substantiated threat of autism, President Trump singled the model out.
“Taking Tylenol will not be good,” he mentioned. “Don’t take it, don’t take it.”
The PR plight that Tylenol finds itself on this week is arguably its third—a bitter capsule, contemplating the model did nothing to trigger any of them. What’s extra, Kenvue’s rapid downside isn’t simply yesterday’s finger-pointing, however the man pointing the finger.
“Kenvue is in a really troublesome place when a sitting president makes use of the White Home podium to discourage use of its flagship product,” mentioned David Johnson, CEO of Strategic Imaginative and prescient PR Group, which focuses on disaster communications. “The best counter is to not go toe-to-toe politically, however to lean exhausting on science, security, and belief.”
Fortuitously, it is a model with reserves of all three.
Poison capsule
The poisoned Tylenol episode of 1982—the one which prompted Andrews’ telephone to ring—exploded on the nationwide scene when seven individuals died after taking Further Power Tylenol capsules laced with potassium cyanide. (Authorities by no means recognized the perpetrator.)
To this present day, enterprise faculties educate J&J’s response as a textbook instance of efficient disaster administration.
CEO James Burke instantly arrange an emergency technique group, which stood up a toll-free info quantity, labored intently with the FBI, and finally recalled 31 million bottles of Tylenol. Inside six weeks, Burke’s workforce additionally rolled out tamper-proof packaging (at present commonplace for consumer-health manufacturers) and distributed coupons to 40 million individuals encouraging them that Tylenol was secure to make use of.
Extra bother would come knocking on Tylenol’s door in 2010, when the FDA—alarmed by persistent charges of unintended overdoses of acetaminophen—required makers of the ache reliever so as to add a liver-damage warning to its packaging.
No model desires to put on an indication warning of deadly harm, however right here once more J&J turned a hurdle into an opportunity to construct public belief in its model. Three years after the FDA’s admonition, it voluntarily added an extra warning to Tylenol’s cap that learn: “Incorporates acetaminophen. At all times learn the label.”
In a ready assertion, the corporate mentioned that it “takes acetaminophen overdose very critically, which is why we now have taken important steps… to mitigate the danger.”
Tylenol’s newest disaster
Monday’s announcement on the White Home has put the ache aid capsule within the crosshairs as soon as once more. Kenvue responded rapidly with a press release stressing that “a decade of rigorous analysis…confirms that there is no such thing as a credible proof linking acetaminophen with autism.”
However disaster communications consultants suggest that the corporate proceed to double down on its messaging.
“The assertion was mandatory, however completely inadequate when dealing with this stage of scrutiny,” mentioned Evan Nierman, founder and CEO of disaster PR agency Purple Banyan. He prompt Tylenol coordinate with main medical associations, pharmacy chains, and OB-GYNs “to create a unified entrance,” and to take action “with the identical pace and authority that made their 1982 tampering response the gold commonplace.”
Johnson supplied comparable counsel. Kenvue, he mentioned, ought to launch “a coordinated, fact-based media and digital marketing campaign—temporary, visible, and shareable—underscoring FDA approval, doctor endorsements, and clear utilization steerage,” he mentioned. With an authoritative, medical rejoinder like this, “Kenvue can reframe the dialog round well being and security reasonably than politics, whereas reassuring each the general public and traders.”
Burke, who died in 2012, can’t give recommendation on this one, however his 1982 components of placing concern for shoppers earlier than the corporate did pay for itself. After dropping some $100 million on the recall and watching Tylenol’s gross sales fall by a 3rd, inside 4 years the capsule was as soon as once more the main ache reliever in America.
The fast restoration even has a reputation: The Tylenol Impact.
