A classmate distributed birthday chocolates in my daughter’s class today and half the class refused to take it. Wonder why? These fifth graders checked for its brand and it was “Nestle”!
The Maggi crisis seems to have taken down not only the much loved instant noodles, but also the whole Nestle ship with it, from where recovery seems long-drawn out and Herculean, if at all that ever happens!

So, is Nestle being written off? Probably yes!
Could this have been handled better? Definitely yes!

Rewind to 1982.

Back then, a grave crisis threatened the reputation, profits and the very existence of Johnson & Johnson. A tampered batch of their painkiller pill, the reigning market giant, Tylenol, had been laced with cyanide, resulting in the death of seven people instantly. It blew into a national crisis in USA. 31 million bottles of Tylenol were pulled off the shelves overnight. Production was brought to a grinding halt. Media of the pre-internet era was abuzz with morbid warnings issued by regulatory authorities.​

Was J&J as a company and Tylenol as a brand written off? Yes.
Did the brand and the company disappear? Hell, NO!

Tylenol was back on shelves within a few months and even today, it is a top seller in the US market for OTC medicine. And with that, Johnson & Johnson scripted a legacy in comeback strategies. The company emerged stronger than ever before and is regarded as one of the honest, responsible and highly accountable companies.
So, how did J&J pull this off?
Pulling millions of batches off the shelves across the country, panic-stricken warnings about your star product in the media – J&J realised early on that its reputation, credibility and its very future was at stake.

Did the crisis management team keep mum? No.
Did they deny and brush away this stray incident, since this was a tampering case anyway? No.

They stuck to basics. They turned to their corporate business philosophy – “Our Credo” penned by their leaders in the 1940s. These guiding principles outlined the responsibility of the company towards the consumer, the community and the company stakeholders. The company stayed true to this simple fundamental principle – just do what is morally right and it will serve you well in the long run.

Their 2-phase comeback strategy showed the corporate world how a crisis ought to be handled.

Phase 1 – Face the Fire

• Take immediate accountability

The company made its choice to withdraw the product from the market though it costed millions. The leader took charge – the CEO became the single face and interface with the media till the crisis blew over.

• Be Candid with your customers

Instead of keeping mum, J&J upped its press and media briefings and kept the general public aware of their moral, compassionate stance on protection of public interest through their candid media releases. They even offered to exchange all purchased Tylenol bottles. Media lapped this up and were airing these messages round the clock.

Phase 2 – Strategize and Act

• Fix the Issue

Instead of splurging on launching a new product or a new brand as many pundits were predicting, J&J fixed the root cause of the issue and introduced triple seal, tamper proof bottles of the same brand.

• Get back that customer who moved away!

They then offered a variety of discounts on the newly packaged Tylenol over the next few months, enticing any customer who had moved away.

• Advertising

The re-introduction of Tylenol had to have the sound backing of responsible advertising, subtly reassuring the public on all the preventive steps put in place and regain the eroded trust of the consumers.

• Get your partners and vendors to bat for you

Over 2000 J&J sales people made face-to-face presentations to the medical community all over USA, to support the re-introduction of Tylenol. They batted for Tylenol and proved to be a major factor strengthening the comeback.

The result?

Within months, Tylenol was back and J&J emerged stronger than ever before and even today has a very high brand recognition value and more importantly customer trust.

The Tylenol comeback story usually gets pinned up as the poster pic for successful Public Relations. However, in reality, the success came from simple factors – the foundation, the beliefs and the basic principles that a company runs on, the agility with which a strategy was drawn up and executed, the accountability that the leader took upon himself. That is what differentiates the make or break of businesses.

Well, coming to the noodles tragedy of 2015 that is boiling the food processing industry over, one can only wonder why Nestle has hit the mute button throughout the Maggi imbroglio. Shoving aside the shallow statements and shying away from the public, it is high time Nestle takes accountability and behaves responsibly towards its consumers!

Bindu S. Sastry

Bindu is the Founder and MD of Mauverick. She is a passionate leader with a vision to strategise and make businesses succeed and attain sustainable growth.
With a deep knowledge and experience in the Global IT industry across Product and Services Companies, Mphasis, HP, Novell with diverse roles across Technology, Engineering and Management, she believes in constant innovation, creativity and breaking barriers to realise dreams!