Where Do You Stand?

This month’s issue of Public Relations Tactics revisits the Tylenol cyanide tampering crisis of 1982 – an industry standard of crisis PR done right. Times have changed and social media has certainly added an even timelier element to crisis management. However, the main principles of how Johnson & Johnson handled their response are still the cornerstones of successful crisis communications:

1. Being prepared ahead of time.
2. Acting quickly and definitively.
3. Telling the truth.
4. Treating the media with respect and honesty.
5. Meeting media deadlines whenever possible.
6. Following up with answers to questions that may not be readily available.
7. Avoiding speculation on information that is not yet available.
8. Identifying a high-level spokesperson to communicate with the media, as well as other internal/external audiences.

Learn more about what happened during Tylenol’s crisis, which resulted in seven deaths.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 24th, 2008 at 8:50 am and is filed under Crisis Communications. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.