It's Difficult to Recover From Recalls

With our recent class discussion focusing on PR issues, Johnson and Johnson comes to mind as a company that's been through some large scale recalls, and subsequently PR issues lately. According to an article by the Associated Press, Johnson and Johnson has had eleven recent recalls ranging from medications, to contacts, to hip replacements. Probably their most detrimental recall was on April 30 and it included 136 million children and infants' medications. At this point, the CEO has said the focus is not on implementing a re-building trust media campaign, but rather on getting product back on the shelves. The media plan will follow once product is available again.

Although Johnson and Johnson has long been revered as a trust worthy company, they have a lot of work to do to re-gain the trust of their customers. It will be especially difficult for them because they are trying to capture the trust of an already extremely product sensitive population: parents of infants and children.