It is quite obvious that company is in trouble when you look at its website and see all the digital distress signals. Check out these sites of recently troubled or confused enterprises, including Maclaren, Toyota, Playtex, and Tylenol for examples of these distress signals.
When you look at its Web site, Toyota, which recalled millions of cars for their faulty accelerator pedals in January, seems to be going into a apology spring sale frenzy. The plan appears to be to express less chagrin than gratitude and largess. “Toyota wants to thank you with our biggest offers ever,” reads the home page. To the left of that declaration is an equally thrilling-seeming banner, this one red states why they are thanking you: “Recall Information: Get the Latest Updates Here.” Check out last months Toyota Trust Communications BOCA blog for more of their crisis communication. I think they should have followed Tylenols "gold standard" and been alittle less sorry and a little more transparent.
Johnson & Johnson is well known for its profound corporate recovery, in the way it finessed a comeback after the 1982 Chicago Tylenol murders. The Tylenol Web site projects absolute self-assurance on in spite of January recalls of Tylenol and other of its medicines (Rolaids, Motrin, Benadryl) after complaints of a moldy smell. A big red button on the home page points a finger at “Important Recall News” and links to a matter-of-fact press release and to a handy way to tell if you’re holding a recalled Tylenol product. Though it lacks the distracting ebullience of the Toyota site, Tylenol plays its setbacks similarly, positioning recalls as though they were all in a day’s work for a scrupulous company that manufactures a lot of important products.
Seven people died in 1982 after taking Tylenol capsules, which had been tampered with and contaminated with cyanide. According to Effective Crisis Management, Tylenol’s market share quickly went from 37 percent to only seven percent. Johnson & Johnson faced a huge challenge. Not only did the company have to manage the crisis communication of just Tylenol, but also of the entire company’s reputation. J&J recalled approximately 31 million bottles of Tylenol from across the country and stopped all advertising.
Some say J&J set a standard for crisis communication when they “assumed responsibility by ensuring public safety first and recalled all of their capsules from the market,” despite the fact that the bottles were tampered with after reaching the shelves. Tylenol was reintroduced into the market with triple-seal tamper-resistant packaging, offered coupons for the products, created a new discounted pricing program, new advertising campaign and gave more than 2,250 presentations to the medical community. According to Managing Crises Before They Happen (Mitroff, 2001), J&J actually increased their credibility during the crisis because of the candidness of the executives. Notre Dame expert Professor Patrick Murphy said J&J set a “gold standard” in regards to business ethics as well because J&J was proactive and transparent.
