“He who is best prepared can best serve his moment of inspiration.”
― Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Every generation has to face its own rounds of brand challenges related to the economy, public attitudes, world events, and more. Especially when things go bad, it’s easy to think that in the crisis of the moment there are no parallels to reference for a way forward. This is where despair sets in. But there are almost always examples we can look to for how to thrive in challenging times. Let’s take a look back at the 1980’s Tylenol recall.
Deal With The Challenge Directly
Through no fault of their own, Tylenol found themselves facing an unimaginable nightmare when a crazed person tampered with products and killed people.
For those who don’t know the story: In 1982 Chicago, people started dying of cyanide poisoning. Random people with no connection with each other, except that officials quickly discovered someone was lacing Tylenol with cyanide. It induced panic in the community to the degree that police and rescue vehicles were driving through neighborhoods announcing to people to toss out their Tylenol.
Think about that for a moment: police and rescue vehicles were driving through neighborhoods announcing to people to toss out Tylenol. Samsung went through a recall in 2016 when their Galaxy Note 7 products generated too much heat and the products caught on fire or exploded. At the time, in every airport gate in the U.S., gate attendants announced that Samsung Galaxy products were prohibited from the planes. It’s one thing for a product to perform badly. It’s another thing for a product to perform so badly that airlines make announcements against your brand prior to every U.S. flight for three months.
The Tylenol problem was worse, still.
Through no fault of their own, Tylenol had a major crisis on their hands. In all, 7 people died.
Johnson & Johnson, Tylenol brand owners, decided to pull all Tylenol products from the shelf. ALL of it, or 31 million bottles, since they didn’t want anyone else to die, and no one could be sure what products were affected.
Then they went to work, as resilient brands do.
Adjust Based On The New Reality
The buzz word these days is “pivot”. But companies have been adapting and adjusting for years without having a buzzword.
What I love about the Tylenol story is that the brand found themselves in a situation far beyond their control—and gained control again by sheer force and creativity. Most companies would have withered under these circumstances. But J&J put their best people to work on the challenge.
A short while later they reintroduced the world to Tylenol. To make sure people knew Tylenol was a safe brand, they launched with innovations consumers could see. Innovations that are so common today that new generations just accept that their products will be “Safety sealed three ways!”:
Glued boxes so consumers could tell at a glance if someone had gotten in first.
Bottle caps wrapped in plastic. So even if the box had issues, the plastic was a quick indicator of tamper-free products.
Foil-sealed lids as the final barrier against bad things happening without your knowledge.
Build On The New Reality
The Tylenol brand hasn’t looked back in ages. It’s mostly people like us who keep bringing up the story—or people who study crisis management. It’s an amazing study in how to deal with a brand collapse that’s beyond your control. But in the end, it’s what a brand chooses to control that makes the difference. J&J had the kind of culture that enabled them to take on a catastrophe head-on and thrive by making tough choices, adjusting in the new reality, acting with purpose, and building on the new reality.
There will always be crises. It’s how brands choose to deal with them that will determine what brands survive and which ones fade away.