Public Relations Role
in the Tylenol
Murders Crisis
Jonathan Dailey
Principles of Public Relations
Sara Steffes Hansen
5/14/12
In 1982, seven people died from consuming poisoned Tylenol capsules that were laced
with Cyanide. The victims in this case were five females and two males, and they became the
first people to ever die from product tampering according to "Tylenol Murders"
http://www.aerobiologicalengineering.com/wxk116/TylenolMurders/. What the killer did was
place bottles filled with poisoned Tylenol on the shelves of six different stores intending to kill
the random consumers who purchased them. This was an event that occurred on the west side
of Chicago and caused serious problems for Johnson and Johnson, the company who owns the
Tylenol brand. This case has never been solved, Johnson and Johnson has offered a $100,000
reward for information leading to the arrest of the Tylenol killers however that reward still
remains unclaimed to this day according to the Yahoo! Voices article "1982 Tylenol Killer:
$100,000 Reward Still Available for Information Leading to Capture of Murderer.” Immediately
after the Tylenol Murders took place a large wave of copycat killers followed in his footsteps
which turned the 1982 Halloween holiday into a very scary one for the parents of trick or
treating children. The Food and Drug Administration in Washington counts 270 incidents of
suspected product tampering that have been reported around the country following the
Tylenol Murder Crisis according to George Church’s 1982 Time Magazine article "Copycats are
on the Prowl."
After the Tylenol Murders took place Johnson and Johnson faced a public relations
nightmare, however they handled the situation smart by acting quickly and ethically. The news
of this incident traveled like wildfire and caused massive panic across the entire nation. These
poisonings made it vital for Johnson & Johnson to launch a public relations campaign for the
crisis immediately; they needed to do this in order to save the integrity their product and their
corporation as a whole. According to a story by Tamara Kaplan of The Pennsylvania State
University "The Tylenol Crisis: How Effective Public Relations Saved Johnson & Johnson”.
Johnson and Johnson’s handling of the Tylenol Murder crisis consisted of a two phased
public relations campaign. In the first phase they dealt with how they were actually going to
handle the crisis. They started the campaign by first and foremost putting customer safety
before anything else. This helped show the American people that they were concerned more
about them then profit or financial concerns. Immediately after the product tampering
occurred Johnson and Johnson used the media to alert customers nationwide about what had
happened, and advised everyone to stop consuming Tylenol products until they were able to
get everything sorted out. They then stopped all production and advertisement of Tylenol
products, and recalled all Tylenol capsules from the market, and recalled all existing Tylenol
products from all stores. This recall included approximately 31 million bottles of Tylenol, with a
retail value of more than 100 million dollars (Broom, Center, Cutlip, 381).
They then established relations with the Chicago Police, the FBI, and the Food and Drug
Administration. They did this so they could have a part in helping to find the person who laced
the Tylenol capsules and they also could help prevent further crimes from taking place.
Johnson & Johnson was given a lot of positive coverage for how they handled this crisis. The
Saturday after the poisonings took place three of the victims were buried and the funerals got
national attention. Some of the top executives at Johnson and Johnson were shown in tears at
the funerals. Johnson and Johnson concluded phase one of their public relations campaign by
putting up a 100,000 dollar reward for information leading to the arrest of the Tylenol killer as
stated earlier. A lot of newspapers, magazines, and television companies applauded the way
Johnson and Johnson was handling the crisis, according to according to a story by Tamara
Kaplan of The Pennsylvania State University "The Tylenol Crisis: How Effective Public Relations
Saved Johnson & Johnson”.
The company began gearing up for phase two of their public relations plan, otherwise
known as the "comeback" phase, before the first phase had even been completed. Before the
poisonings took place Tylenol had a massive advertising budget. This product had become the
number one alternative to Aspirin in the nation. The product had 37 percent of the market for
over-the-counter painkilling medicine. Since Tylenol was such a huge money-maker for
Johnson & Johnson, the company unleashed an extremely large marketing and promotional
program to bring Tylenol back to its position as the number one over-the-counter pain killer in
the United States. Six weeks after the poisonings Johnson and Johnson unveiled their plan for
saving the reputation of the Tylenol brand. They implemented a triple layer tamper resistant
packaging with all products in the Tylenol line that far exceeded the minimum requirements put
in place by the Food and Drug Administration. The company’s vice president who joined the
company in 1957 wrote a “credo” which laid out the corporate morals and plan of action in the
time of a crisis. This became the blueprint for how the company handled this crisis, so their
actions were fairly simple because they simply “followed the plan” that was put in place
decades earlier "The Tylenol Crisis: How Effective Public Relations Saved Johnson & Johnson”.
Tylenol is not only still available for sale; it remains one of the top selling over the
counter drugs in this country. It took very little time for the product to return to the market
share that it had prior to the crisis in 1982. Johnson and Johnson's handling of the Tylenol
tampering crisis is considered by public relations experts to be one of the best in the history of
public "The Tylenol Crisis: How Effective Public Relations Saved Johnson & Johnson”. This is a
textbook example of how to handle crisis situations. They didn’t cut any corners and took full
responsibility for the problem they faced even though they didn’t create it. That’s why this case
is still being used as a gold standard example 30 years later.
Works Cited

Broom, Glen M., Allen H. Center, Scott M. Cutlip. Effective Public Relations, Seventh
Edition. Prentice-Hall Inc. 1994.

Kaplan, Tamara, and the Pennsylvania State University. ““The Tylenol Crisis: How
Effective Public Relations Saved Johnson & Johnson...” Welcome to Aerobiological
Engineering. N.P., n.d. Web. 16 May 2012. http://www.aerobiologicalengineering.com.

"1982 Tylenol Killer: $100,000 Reward Still Available for Information Leading to Capture
of Murderer - Yahoo! Voices - voices.yahoo.com." Yahoo! Voices - voices.yahoo.com.
N.P., n.d. Web. 16 May 2012. <http://voices.yahoo.com/1982-tylenol-killer-100000reward-still-6652488.html?cat=71>.

"Tylenol Murders."
http://www.aerobiologicalengineering.com/wxk116/TylenolMurders/

Church, George J. "Copycats are on the Prowl." Time. November 8, 1982.