We’re going to start off with a story. Imagine that you are the CEO of a very large company. You show up to work on Monday and are informed that over the weekend a number of people became sick or died after ingesting your product.
Freak out mode.
You start panicking. What happened? What do you do? It runs through your head that your company is over. This is it. Plus, you can’t even begin to comprehend that your product, your company, caused people to die. Someone’s child, spouse, mother, are now dead because of something that your company provided.
While in the moment, it may seem like this is the end for your company and you are doomed, that’s not entirely true. This is just a transition. Depending on how this transition is handled, it will determine the future of your company or small business.
For example, something similar in this nature actually happened to a popular medicine company that is still around and thriving today. That company was Tylenol. If you don’t remember this tragic incident that happened in the 80s here’s a little info to fill you in.
Back then, there wasn’t any kind of sealing process that was in place for medicine bottles. Tylenol used capsules for its pill type. Someone decided to unscrew some of those bottles that were already on store shelves and laced them with cyanide, resulting in seven deaths.
In response, Tylenol put customer safety first and quickly pulled 31 million bottles of Tylenol---$100 million worth—off the shelves and stopped all production and advertising of the product. Moving forward, Tylenol reintroduced its pill bottles with tamper-resistant packaging.
Tylenol was thrusted into a transition due to a crisis. The way it responded saved the company and established it as being trustworthy and transparent. Tylenol did what it took to take care of its consumers, and thought very little about itself during the process.
Nobody wants to go through transition of a crisis in business, especially to the length of what Tylenol went through, but what it shows is that it allows you to demonstrate your values and shows your company’s true colors.
When a company or small business goes into a state of transition it also has a major impact on its marketing. Along with being transparent and upfront with the situation, this is a time to make your brand messaging extra clear. Having a strong message, like Tylenol did, will help to allow for your company to survive and continue to have consumers like and trust your brand.
Transition can be a difficult time for any company or small business, no matter the extremity of it. Being prepared for an event, and having a strong sense of your message and what your company brings to the marketplace will be the determining factor of how the situation ends. If you need help gaining clarity on what your message is or how to be prepared, we can help!
Since 2002, Half a Bubble Out has been dedicated to providing marketing, advertising and small business consulting that meet the needs of our clients. We specialize in powerfully telling stories through inbound marketing to grow your business filled with more passion and provision. Based in Chico California, we serve clients throughout Northern California and across the country to New York.
