“The backlash over the ad was immediate” To rebuild trust, corporations in trouble follow a familiar script. “I am deeply sorry.” “This was a major breach of trust.” One written nearly 40 years ago, when a deadly crisis gripped America. “The first to buy was the first to die.” “Tylenol changed the crisis landscape.” But have all the lessons been learned? “Anger is boiling over on social media with the hashtag ’#boycott.’” “I was 8 years old and my mom had just gotten back from the maternity ward, went to the grocery store and bought Tylenol from the grocery store, that was doctor’s orders. And the next thing I knew I just saw my mom go out on a stretcher from my upstairs window and that was the last that I saw her.” Mary Reiner’s Tylenol had been inexplicably spiked with poison. “Three people are dead and another is in critical condition tonight.” “One of the victims took the pills he bought to his home.” “His brother and sister-in-law were so upset by his death that they went back to the house and took some Tylenol from the same bottle.” As the death toll hit seven, the terrifying randomness of the poisonings shocked the nation. “That bizarre mystery of Tylenol laced with cyanide still has not been solved tonight.” “Investigators say they are searching for, quote, ‘a madman.’” “People were terrorized. They didn’t know what product they had in their home that could possibly be lethal if they ingested it.” “Scared, really, that something, somebody could have tampered with some of the other products.” “Cyanide-contaminated Tylenol...” “We had police riding around with their bullhorns yelling, ‘Throw out your Tylenol. Flush it down the toilet.’” “Do not take any Tylenol until further notice.” “People were checking themselves into the E.R. thinking they’d been poisoned.” “I was just nervous for the baby.” “It was absolute chaos.” “Flush it all down the commode, O.K.?” “There is no single person or even a group of single persons that stand out above the rest at this point in time.” “We had no clues as to the motivation, except the taking of human life. It made no sense, there was no clear and intended victim, but just anyone — anyone who happened to have the misfortune to buy a bottle of Tylenol.” “Police are looking for disgruntled employees, angry customers, anybody with a grudge against the stores or Tylenol.” “Police are even checking stock transactions to see whether someone was trying to push down the value of Johnson & Johnson stock.” “This was not a cockroach-in-a-box kind of an issue. People had lost their lives. That really created that vulnerability, that sense of risk, that sense of threat that I think really scared a lot of people, and justifiably.” Alan Hilburg worked for Johnson & Johnson’s outside public relations firm, one that was increasingly focused on a new type of business: crisis management. “I remember asking lots of questions. The conversation was, ‘Well, we need to recall.’ O.K. Do we recall from the store? Do we recall from the city? Do we recall from the region?” “All the bottles of Extra Strength capsules were removed Friday as part of the nationwide recall.” “Now, not only is Extra Strength Tylenol off the shelves, Tylenol commercials are off the air.” “The race is on for Tylenol’s competitors.” “They didn’t worry about the money. They didn’t worry about the impact on the company. They stopped shipment, ordered all their distribution chains to pull it back in so that we could figure out what was going on. And that sticks out in my mind. It was not a negotiation or discussion. In fact, they stepped forward and volunteered it.” “Some analysts predict the Tylenol brand name will disappear within a year.” “We concluded we were never going to be judged by what caused the problem. We were always going to be judged on how we responded to it.” Meanwhile, the criminal investigation seemed stuck in first gear. “The 130-man, multimillion-dollar investigation, according to sources, hasn’t lifted a promising fingerprint.” “We did receive hundreds, indeed, thousands of tips. And would investigate and run down every single one of those tips.” “A stolen car with Tylenol in it. The body of a man found with Tylenol in a coat pocket. The reports of a Tylenol shoplifter.” “We got there, we said, ‘Now, where did you get this information?’ and she says, ‘I have a magic pen and it made me write these things out and I told you about it.’” “Hundreds of leads to the cyanide killer but most of them bum and bizarre.” Then, there was a new development: an extortion letter threatening to do it again. “Authorities today stepped up their search for the man accused of demanding a million dollars from the makers of Tylenol to prevent further murders.” “The extortion letter when received was an obvious point of interest to the law enforcement authorities.” “James Lewis is said to have made that demand...” “He maintained as many as 20 aliases and described himself variously as a salesman, computer specialist, importer and freelance writer.” “We were trying to determine whether or not the person that sent the letter was indeed the one that had put the cyanide in all the capsules, or whether it was just some lookalike or screwball taking advantage.” “Common sense would tell you this is an important thing that we are looking at.” As the police searched for Lewis, Johnson & Johnson grappled with a $100 million recall and the future of one of its most lucrative brands. “The question became, ‘How do we regain trust?’ It wasn’t in the efficacy of the medicine. Tylenol works. Trust was lost in the packaging, because the packaging had enabled the poison, the cyanide, to be entered into the medicine.” “Six weeks to the day since the Tylenol murder story broke, Johnson & Johnson held a news conference in New York to reintroduce Tylenol.” “Tylenol capsules...” “It had the cotton ball, it had aluminum over the top, it had a child-proof cap, it had plastic over the child-proof cap. Those levels of safety became the levels of trust.” “I think they’re going the extra mile to make it sure that it’s consumer safe.” “Tylenol, the so-called eighth victim, of this tragedy is continuing to recover.” “A business turnaround one analyst calls the greatest comeback since Lazarus.” “Packaging now had become a competitive advantage. Everything from food products to pharmaceuticals were favorably affected.” “If I take the cap off the milk carton — you have to stick your finger in there, and grab the ring, and pull the ring out, along with the seal — I think of Tylenol still to this day.” Today, although crisis management has become a multibillion-dollar industry, Hilburg says many companies seem to miss an important lesson: come clean with the public right away. “We’re seeing too many examples of companies, whether it’s Volkswagen or Wells Fargo or Equifax, where situations actually exacerbate simply because they forgot the lesson that you’re going to not be judged by what caused the crisis but by how you respond.” “J & J has...” Johnson & Johnson has also stumbled since the Tylenol case. In 2010, it faced a public backlash after a series of drug recalls, including one the company conducted without letting regulators or consumers know. “Mr. Chairman, I know that we let the public down.” “The single most important metric of a company’s value is trust. And that’s what crises threaten. They threaten trust.” “Faced with worldwide outrage over these images showing a passenger forcibly removed from a plane, United Airlines’ C.E.O. issued his third apology on Tuesday.” “You said you were sorry. Where are you going from here? That’s how I’m going to judge whether I trust you or not.” Almost 40 years after the Tylenol murders, the case remains unsolved. While Lewis served 12 years in prison for the attempted extortion of Johnson & Johnson, he has long denied any involvement in the tampering and no one has ever been charged with the deadly crime. “Lewis made himself a suspect because he tried to shake down money with the implication being that he had done it and would do it again. But we had several other suspects, none of which would answer the question of why, and there was no direct link as to the indiscriminate taking of life.” “The investigation continues...” “There was no evidence to pin it on anybody at that time, and there still hasn’t been any evidence to pin it on anyone. So, that’s where this all stands. It’s the perfect crime.”