With Melamine – the toxin at the root of last year’s pet food adulteration – back in the news, the retailers and manufacturers that will be forced to deal with just the latest China-related product safety scare should take a page from a crisis playbook classic.

This week marks the 26th anniversary of the Tylenol tampering crisis. To this day, the famous 1982 incident is presented as the successful case study in how corporations should handle any crisis involving food, drug, or consumer products.

Johnson & Johnson’s swift action in recalling more than 31 million Tylenol bottles nationwide – within days of the cyanide-related deaths in the Chicago area being linked to the over-the-counter pain reliever – reassured the public at a “bet-the-company” moment and saved one of America’s favorite brands. The lessons of the Tylenol crisis are enduring and they provide a blueprint for crisis managers today. Here are five of those lessons:
 
1. Think like a consumer. The Tylenol crisis team immediately put themselves in the shoes of heads of family households who were worried about the Tylenol in their medicine cabinets and on their local store shelves – whether they lived in Illinois or Alaska. That should be the first instinct of any company facing a crisis today.

2. Use the right messages and the right messengers. J&J CEO James Burke demonstrated concern, commitment, and action at every opportunity the media offered. Today, corporate leaders facing a company-threatening crisis need to take this a step further by speaking not only through the media, but also directly to consumers with Websites, blogs, and on YouTube videos.

3. Be transparent. Burke and his team took their crisis public and shared all information as it became available. J&J lost market share initially in the wake of public fear, but soon regained it – and kept it for two-and-a-half decades – because the company had won the trust of consumers everywhere.

4. Act quickly and decisively. J&J didn’t just pull Tylenol from the shelves of the Chicago area, which would have been acceptable to regulators and health authorities. The company pulled all the Tylenol on store shelves at its own expense. No one could be more careful or caring than that. The message J&J sent in acting well before regulators required action was that their customers were more important than their profits. This message benefits J&J to this day.

5. Find the industry gap and fill it. As the great movie director Alfred Hitchcock used to say “Show me, don’t tell me.” J&J recognized that what happened to them – post production tampering – could happen to any pharmaceutical company. They quickly went to work to replace all Tylenol bottles with tamper-resistant packaging that became the standard for all over-the-counter medical products to this day.