The Tylenol Crisis

Johnson & Johnson is widely known by PR professionals as a leading, iconic company who handled an extreme crisis in the best way possible.

In 1982, seven people in Chicago mysteriously died after ingesting Extra Strength Tylenol. The news spread around the world almost instantly, causing a nationwide panic. The cause of the deaths unraveled days later when two off-duty firemen made a connection between Tylenol and the deaths. The Tylenol capsules turned out to contain 65 milligrams of cyanide each, which is about 60 micrograms more than it takes to kill a human. Johnson & Johnson spoke to the media immediately, releasing a statement that there was no possible way for the tampering to have taken place in any of their plants. They came to the conclusion that since the deaths had only occurred in Chicago, the tampering occurred throughout different stores in the throughout the Chicago area.

Johnson & Johnson's true colors were shown when they had to put a crisis management plan into action fast. The best thing that J&J did was to place customer safety before the companies profit and other financial concerns. Within the first few hour of the crisis, they alerted the media not to consume any type of Tylenol product. In addition to alerting the nation, they stopped all production and advertising of Tylenol and recalled all capsules from the market. The recall included 31 million bottles of Tylenol, with a retail value of more than 100 million dollars.

Johnson & Johnson barely showed concern for themselves. Their main focus was to get to the bottom of the deaths. They offered a $100,000 reward for the person responsible for the tampering. They dealt with the families of the victims individually doing all they could to make up for their losses. J&J were praised for their responsible actions all around the world. The media compared them to other companies who had put themselves first in crises, ruining their reputation and their companies. Newspapers portrayed them as a company that demonstrated how a major business should effectively handle a crisis. Less than 6 weeks after the crisis, Tylenol was back on the market with new safety seals on all bottles, warnings about use if the safety seals were broken and tamper-resistant packaging. This crisis benefited Johnson & Johnson in the long run. It helped define them as a company and built their positive reputation.

Global Communications

The Johnson & Johnson Procurement organization is a global organization. Each J&J company around the world has its own procurement organization that partners with a line management to create a supplier network. Johnson & Johnson has procurement centers in Asia, Canada, Latin America, Middle Eastern Europe & Africa. They also implement 13 category teams each with leaders who represent J&J operating companies. The product teams are organized by categories such as chemicals, external manufacturing and information technology. The teams work to strengthen the supplier network that provides J&J businesses exceptional quality products and services at low costs, innovative ideas & solutions, and tremendous supply continuity and suppliers with a focus on environmental social responsibility.

When you think of Johnson & Johnson, it is common knowledge that they are a global company helping millions of people all around the globe. When navigating their website, I found it quite difficult to find out about their global communications. The information above is as in depth as their website takes you when talking about their global operations. I came across one page that allowed you to choose which country you were from and than the website would be translated into that particular language. There were many reports on their worldwide contributions from previous years and many press releases about their philanthropic efforts as well.

One particular report I read was about their efforts with Africa. In Kenya, J&J partnered up with the Mission for Essential Drugs & Supplies (MEDS) and Project Mercy to provide a drug called Tibozole, which treats Oral Thrush, at significantly low prices to small, community based-groups who suffer from disease. Oral Thrush is a symptom of HIV which produces painful lesions in the mouth that can spread to the esophagus. In Kenya, 886,000 patients have received donations of the drugs from J&J, MEDS and Project Mercy. The income that MEDS accumulates from selling the drug is used to issue grants to local organizations in Kenya dedicated to improving community health. Johnson & Johnson then matches the grant amounts and donates it to non-profit organizations focused on HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention.

Despite their wide range of "giving", I expected to find more about how their business operations work globally. I think that they should make their web page easier to navigate when it comes to global communications. While exploring different areas of their site, they often mention "helping people all around the world", although I did not find it  easy to find what countries they actually do business in. I did find many stories of how they have contributed to specific countries, such as Hong Kong, Somalia and Pakistan, but other than that it seemed to only focus on the U.S. I think that they should have a tab on their main page that is strictly for global communications. This could go into specifics about where they have operations, who runs them and how they differ from the companies in the U.S, if they do at all. If a company is going to portray themselves as "global", it is vital to have an easy, accessible way to contain information about their global communications.

Investor Relations

2010 was what Johnson & Johnson's Chairman, William Weldon defined as "a year to be severely tested on numerous fronts". With an overall worldwide sales decrease of 1.3 percent operationally, they made $61.6 billion during the last fiscal year. In the Chairman's letter addressing the 2010 Annual Report, he speaks about facing the challenges of global economic downturn, a loss of patent exclusivity on major pharmaceutical products and the disappointment of the McNeil Consumer Healthcare product recalls. In turn J&J introduced new products, expanded business in emerging markets and continued their tradition of caring for their customers and clients.

With the several factors impacting the the health care industry, such as the U.S. health care reform, J&J expects to continue facing the challenges of the slowdown on medical devices and consumer business in 2011. Although they do have high hopes and continue to grow earnings while maintaining investments for future revenue and earnings growth. With these new investments they plan to develop a number of new products that should bring them back up during this tough global economy. Despite the sales decline of 1.3 percent, there adjusted earnings per share increase a total of 2.8 percent, $13.3 billion.

As for the McNeil Consumer Healthcare product recalls, Weldon promised to restore the the high levels of quality and compliance that people expect of Johnson & Johnson companies. He pledges to do so buy learning from that experience, addressing problems at their roots and ensuring that only the highest quality products reach their customers, which he expects to earn back trust and respect.

Johnson & Johnson holds their Credo to a high bar, stating that the source of their enduring strength is a fundamental commitment to their Credo and an operating model that has served them well for decades. The values articulated in their credo help them in every aspect of their company from upholding their reputation to maintaining their accounting and financial responsibilities to their shareholders and investors. They do their best to ensure that financial data is reported accurately in a way that facilitates the understanding of this data. To show this they contain a system of internal accounting controls, encourage strong and effective corporate governance from their Board of Directors and continuously review their business results and strategic choices, as well as focusing on financial stewardship.

Johnson & Johnson is a publicly funded company. It seems that even though they has faced some ups and down during the 2010 year, they keep solid objectives and tactics as to how to continue running a well established group of companies. They do their best to create competitive advantage, fulfill disclosure obligations and make sure their stocks and bonds are well valued in the market place.

Community Relations Efforts

Johnson & Johnson is a family of companies that cares deeply about their customers. Not only is this shown through their products that help people live healthier every day lifestyles, but is also shown through their corporate giving and volunteer efforts from their employees. The company as a whole has worked every day for the last 120 years helping to benefit the lives of their communities. The desire of their employees to make a difference has inspired every invention and product that J&J has brought to human health.

 Since 1987, J&J has been involved with many philanthropic efforts. They are the founding sponsors of a non-profit organization called "Safe Kids Worldwide", which is an organization that promotes child safety in the U.S and 18 other countries around the world. There mission is primarily to teach children and adults how to prevent unintentional injury and death. Another program they are directly involved with is called the "One Child, One Blanket Disaster Relief Program". This program was started by a scientist of J&J and a few employees in which they were making blankets to send to children affected by disasters. Blanket donations started being made not just from J&J employees, but from friends, families, colleagues, communities and continued building up from there. In the program's first year 1,900 blankets were collected and went to displaced children in Pakistan and to children affected by hurricanes in Central America. These are just two of the many organizations that J&J contributes to by helping to make beneficial change to our world.

The Yale/Stanford-Johnson & Johnson Global Health Scholars Program selected the most promising candidates from major American institutions, mainly Yale University or Stanford University, and sends them to one of six overburdened health care sites in places such as Indonesia, South Africa or Uganda. The participants spend 6 weeks in this challenging environment with limited medical supplies and take away with them enhanced medical skills and a great learning experience. This is a special way for J&J to give back to their own employees & future employees.

Johnson & Johnson recently showed their care efforts by helping the people of Japan after their recent natural disaster. Since the earthquake stuck, J&J has worked diligently to see how they could play a role with relief efforts. Thus far, they have committed $8 million in funds in addition to considerable product donations of medical supplies and consumer hygiene products. They have also said that they "are working with local partners to determine the best opportunities to lend assistance and will continue to assess needs as the situation evolves".

All in all Johnson & Johnson shows spectacular community relations and care efforts not only in the United States, but all around the world.

Media Relations

Since the Tylenol Crisis of 1982, Johnson & Johnson has been a leading role model for all companies and organizations ever handling crises. They are considered by public relations experts to be one of the best crisis managers in the history of public relations. To continue this affective managing of crises, Johnson & Johnson has a "news" section on their main web page dedicated to their consumers, doctors, patients, etc.

Considering J&J 's products are mainly to help the health and well-bring of it's customers, managing their reputation is very important. They need to make sure they have complete trust from their customers and clients. To do this they maintain a very honest and open relationship with their press by having an organized news section on their web page. It breaks down their news into three sub-categories; Corporate News, Product and Operating Company News and Financial News. They post all of their press releases from over the last two years, as well as a personal section for media professionals to have a more direct line of communication to their media relations department.

I read a few of the articles that fell under the Product and Operating Company News Section. It seems that whoever writes their press releases have a good background in writing. I would guess that the author of most of these work in their media relations department. I also went on  New York Times to see how different issues were portrayed. A recent recall dilemma that Johnson & Johnson dealt with was the recall of tens of thousands of artificial hips. Though some believe that they didn't respond quick enough due to complaints that were coming four years earlier, their statements showed them taking responsibility. One that came from a New York Times article was: “We are committed to assisting patients and health care providers by providing information through multiple channels and paying for the costs of doctor visits, tests and procedures associated with the recall". Through the few articles I read about this recall, none of the journalist seemed to place Johnson & Johnson in a negative light. This caused me to believe that they hold solid relationships with the media and they handle their media relations activities very proactively.

"Using Social Media for Social Good"

Johnson & Johnson is very involved in social media.  They use Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and blogging. They are very active and up to date with their postings and keep a good relationship with their consumers through these social media outlets. By having so many different faces all over the internet they are allowing consumers to contact them more conveniently and communicate with them more effectively.

On Facebook, J&J has a main network called the Johnson & Johnson Network. This gives all their followers an open line for discussion on J&J products, concerns or just general comments. Their Facebook page acts as a home base for their overall social media appearances. There are direct links to their blogs, Twitter pages and Youtube channel. They also post health articles and advice that comes straight from their original web page. Their other Facebook page called Nursing Notes by Johnson & Johnson is a publication of the J&J Campaign for Nursing's Future. This page provides information about the nursing community regarding topics presented in "Nursing Notes", a monthly newsletter produced by the J&J campaign. Between these two pages they have nearly 15,000 followers!

On Twitter they have a variety of appearance. Their main page is JNJStories which shares stories from all the family companies of Johnson & Johnson. People can tweet their success stories with J&J by mentioning @JNJstories as well. They also have a page called JNJComm which tweets about a lot of the topics that are mentioned in their blogs. Their last Twitter page is JNJHistory, which tweets about the complete history of Johnson & Johnson companies & their employees.

Johnson & Johnson has also made strong appearances in the blogging world! One of their blogs called JNJ BTW is written by a man named Marc Monseau, who is part of the J&J Media Relations team. He blogs about Johnson & Johnson, what they are doing, how they are doing and why. He writes comments about J&J news and talks openly and directly. In addition, Monseau posts videos, pictures, advertisements and articles. The other J&J blog is called the Kilmer House which tells the historical stories about the early days at Johnson & Johnson. The author, Margaret Gurowitz is a member of the Corporate Communications department at J&J and makes it her goal to discover new stories about the company's early days and people.

Finally, on YouTube there is a  J&J Health Channel that mainly shares videos that promote a better understanding of health. On the channel they also have a video about how they were a sponsor at Blissdom, one of the leading social media conferences held in Tennessee in January 2011. The theme that J&J used was "Using Social Media for Social Good". Johnson & Johnson uses social media as a direct communication line, as a health channel and as an informational tool to connect with all their consumers and audiences. Their multiple appearances on the internet shows that they strongly believe in the power of social media.

Johnson & Johnson

For my Corporate Public Relations class I was asked to chose a Fortune 100 company, create a blog and post about the company throughout the semester. I chose Johnson & Johnson because I am interested in crisis management and they are a great example of a company who has a great crisis management system. Last semester I learned a lot about the Tylenol crisis and how they dealt with it, which in the long run, enhanced their reputation.

Johnson & Johnson is engaged in the research and development, manufacture and sale of a range of products in the health care field. They have more than 250 companies located in 57 countries around the world. The Company operates in three business segments: Consumer, Pharmaceutical, and Medical Devices and Diagnostics. Their Consumer segment provides people with a wide variety of everyday products including everything from hair care to caring for your allergies. Their Pharmaceutical segment discovers and develops prescription medicines for some of the world's most serious and prevalent diseases, ranging from cancer to HIV and AIDS. Their Medical Devices segment addresses some of the world's most chronic and pervasive conditions through the convergence of technologies, products and services.

The following talks briefly about the subsidiaries within Johnson& Johnson:
"In July 2009, Johnson & Johnson completed the acquisition of Cougar Biotechnology, Inc. with approximately 95.9% interest in Cougar Biotechnology's outstanding common stock. In September 2009, Elan Corporation, plc and Johnson & Johnson announced that JANSSEN Alzheimer Immunotherapy, a newly formed subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, has completed the acquisition of substantially all of the assets and rights of Elan related to its Alzheimer's Immunotherapy Program (AIP). In March 2010, Hypermarcas SA acquired 99.99% of Versoix Participacoes Ltda from the Company. In September 2010, the Company acquired Micrus Endovascular, a global developer and manufacturer of minimally invasive devices for hemorrhagic and ischemic stroke (intrinsivest.com)."

Johnson & Johnson's current stock offering as of 2/21/11 is $61.11

Johnson & Johnson's share statistics:

Avg Vol (3 month)3:	10,775,700
Avg Vol (10 day)3:	8,924,900
Shares Outstanding5:	2.75B
Float:	2.75B
% Held by Insiders6:	0.04%
% Held by Institutions6:	64.50%
Shares Short (as of Jan 31, 2011)3:	25.65M
Short Ratio (as of Jan 31, 2011)3:	2.20
Short % of Float (as of Jan 31, 2011)3:	0.90%
Shares Short (prior month)3:	27.87M