Reputation and Responsibility

 Good afternoon!  I hope this blog finds you well.  This week we will be looking at crisis management, the good and the bad.  Starting with what crisis management is and why it is important.  We will also look at two case studies and compare the differences between them.  The first crisis that will be discussed is Toyota’s sudden acceleration crisis and the impact on their reputation.  The second case study will be on Johnson & Johnson’s Tylenol crisis.   The reason I chose these to crisis to analyze is because in both cases lives were on the line.  Then we will discuss the differences and lessons learned from these crises. 

It is common knowledge that nobody is perfect.  This sentiment is true for organizations as well.  Unfortunately, companies will face a crisis at some point in their lives.  How they handle this crisis can set them apart from the competitors.  To understand how to handle a PR crisis we need to first understand what a PR crisis is.  Talkwalker posted in their article here, “A PR crisis is a detrimental event that poses a threat to your reputation. It can arise from customer complaints, social media backlash, product defects, legal matters, or media scandals. It’s crucial to address and manage these situations effectively for positive reputation management.”  A word that was shared a few times was reputation.  A PR Crisis can ruin a brand by tainting the reputation.  It is very important that organizations respond to a crisis at an appropriate level.  Sabine Gromer states here, “Crises test leaders on their leadership skills, creativity, and resilience. These skills cannot be learned from a guide or manual. In many ways, successful crisis management for leaders is an intense examination of themselves and the challenging acquisition of necessary skills.”  We will look at a few case studies from the past to highlight some areas of good PR crisis management vs bad PR crisis management and the difference that their leaders made.

As stated above no organization is off limits for PR Crisis.  This is true for the global automotive powerhouse Toyota.  Toyota experienced a crisis in the early 2000s with what is now being called the sudden acceleration crisis.  What was happening was that Toyota vehicles were suddenly accelerating by themselves and causing collisions that ended in injury and in some cases fatality.  This obviously was a concern for Toyota costumers.  Toyotas reputation was on the line and most concerningly it had to do with safety.  Tahir Abbas claims in his article here, “During the early stages of the sudden acceleration crisis, one notable aspect was Toyota’s initial response, which involved a degree of denial and dismissal of the problem. This response contributed to the escalation of the crisis and further eroded public trust in the company.  In the initial stages, Toyota downplayed the reports of unintended acceleration incidents, attributing them to driver error or mechanical issues. The company maintained that their vehicles were safe and reliable, asserting that the incidents were isolated and not indicative of a systemic problem.”  There are a handful of mistakes here early on in the crisis management.  One to note is the blatant denial of anything that was happening.  This looks bad in the eyes of consumers who believe that there is something that is indeed wrong with the manufacturing.  Another instance to note was that they even blamed the incidents on the customers.  Blaming the customers or in this case the drivers will almost certainly burn a bridge with them, and they will most likely not buy your product again.  Toyota eventually saw the fault in their ways and recalled their vehicles and set up repair programs to fix the issue. 

                PR Crisis is not always the fault of the company.  However, the leaders within the organization need to still handle the crisis in a way that will not tarnish the reputation of the brand.  This is the case for Johnson & Johnson and the Tylenol crisis of 1982.  At this time an individual or individuals were taking Tylenol spiking them with cyanide and putting them back on the shelves.  As you can imagine this did not end well for the unsuspecting customer.  Unfortunately, seven people lost their lives taking the laced Tylenol.  Johnson & Johnson acted quickly Nagesh Belludi claims in his article here, “Within hours of learning of the deaths, J&J installed toll-free numbers for consumers to get information, sent alerts to healthcare providers nationwide, and stopped advertising the product. J&J recalled 31 million bottles of Tylenol capsules from store shelves and offered replacement products free of charge in the safer tablet form. J&J did not wait for evidence to see whether the contamination might be more widespread.”  It would have been very easy for the company to deny that they were at fault and try to pass the blame outside of the company and start accusing a criminal of the wrongdoing.  They had a strong leader who understood that the safety of the customers was the number one priority at the time.  After this crisis Tylenol went on to lead the industry in converting to tablets instead of capsules and began implementing tamper proof seals to keep this from happening in the future. 

                In these two case studies we can see some major differences that affected the way the company’s reputation was viewed at the time.  The biggest difference was the timeline in which the organization response occurred.  With Toyota their crisis went on for almost ten years before the issue was corrected.  Then for Johnson & Johnson it was only a matter of hours to start implementing a fix to the issue.  In both cases peoples’ lives were at stake, J&J took this very seriously and put their customers first.  In Toyota’s case they had an error in manufacturing but initially placed blame on the consumer.  In J&J’s case a criminal was tampering with the product, but they initially sought to take the blame.  As an organization going through a crisis, it is paramount that you take responsibility for the crisis and do not try to pass it off on to others.  Both companies also had the opportunity to make their brand better by correcting the issues that brought forth the crisis.  In Toyota’s case they were able to fix the manufacturing error and learn how to build their vehicles better in the future.  For Johnson & Johnson they lead their industry in safe tamper proof medication that people trust.

                In conclusion, we discussed what PR crisis is and why it is important for your company to care about them.  The Toyota sudden acceleration crisis of the early 2000s could have been handled better, but I think Toyota did recognize that and implemented a PR team dedicated to crisis.  The Johnson & Johnson Tylenol crisis was handled with the upmost care of consumers and should be looked at as one of the best PR crisis cases.  The biggest thing to take away from this case study is to act quickly, take responsibility, and implement changes.  As the old saying goes, “It is not about how hard you fall, but about how quickly you can get back up.”  Organizations will face crises; people will focus much more on the response than the crisis itself.