In 1982, the Johnson and Johnson Corporation suffered a major blow when one of their top selling products, Tylenol, was laced with cyanide while on store shelves and resulted in seven deaths in the Chicago area. The company responded immediately to the problem and launched a highly successful public relations campaign which averted any long-lasting damage to the company's image. On the other hand, after the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska, Exxon responded so poorly and so slowly that the company still has not recovered its public image. This paper will look at the two disasters, how each company responded, and suggest a public relations strategy which will work for any major corporation placed in this situation.
In March of 1989, the Exxon Valdez, an oil tanker, ran aground on Bligh Reef, dumping 11 million gallons of crude oil into Prince William Sound, Alaska, resulting in the worst oil spill in United States history (Rogers, 519). The incident happened seven weeks before its annual shareholders' meeting, turning the meeting into a major media event. The consensus among public relations experts is that nearly every decision the company made in response the event was wrong (Yagoda 48-51). The Exxon Valdez incident is now held up to public relations students as the prime example of what not to do when such a disaster occurs.
An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll taken in April that year showed that 77 percent of the public thought Exxon could have done more to clean up after the spill and 41 percent would seriously consider boycotting the company. In Fortune's annual rating of America's Most Admired Corporations, Exxon's score fell 17 percent - the fifth largest decline of the 305 companies ranked. Exxon's profits plummeted by more than a third in 1989, partly because of the $2 billion spent to clean up the spill (Yagoda, 48-51).
The public positioning of Exxon's chairman, Lawrence G. Rawl, was deplorable. He ...