COMM101 Topic: Ethics
One of Tylenol’s strongest products in the market faced a huge crisis after the reports of 7 deaths caused by its extra strength capsules. An unknown worker tampered with the product infecting it with deadly chemical, cyanide. Not only did the deaths cause Tylenol’s market value took a great hit, but also consumers and producers were panicking. However, the company came clean and reacted to the situation quickly by recalling all of its products, stopping advertising and making their customers aware of the issue. Although Tylenol experienced great losses during this crisis such as share prices falling and loss of goods; the company made sure to put the consumer before itself. Stopping the production of a top selling product and recalling all of its products on the supermarket and drug store shelves makes no sense in an economical perspective. Regardless Tylenol cared more about the safety of its consumer in spite of its own economical well being.
As a solution J&J developed a tamper resistant packaging making sure nothing like this happens again.
The response of J&J to this crisis is one of the best examples of crisis management and ethics. The company’s openness, generosity and immediate solution to the situation allowed them to gain back market share and more importantly the trust of their consumers.
B Kirk
Sources:
http://www.economist.com/blogs/schumpeter/2013/07/corporate-crisis-mismanagement
http://www.mallenbaker.net/csr/crisis02.php
http://iml.jou.ufl.edu/projects/fall02/susi/tylenol.htm
Image: http://www.ktsm.com/news/recall-tylenol-wants-its-moldy-smelling-caplets-back