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Johnson & Johnson’s Strategy with Motrin: The Growing Pains of Social Media

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Author: Kathryn Eisele, Patrick Fishburne & James S. O’Rourke Online Pub Date: January 04, 2017 | Original Pub. Date: 2010 Subject: Advertising & Promotion, Brand Management & Strategy, Social Media Marketing Level: Intermediate | Type: Indirect case | Length: 3245 words Copyright: © 2010. The Eugene D. Fanning Center for Business Communication, Mendoza College of Business, University of Notre Dame Organization: Johnson & Johnson | Organization size: Large Region: Northern America | State: Industry: Manufacture of basic pharmaceutical products and pharmaceutical preparations Originally Published in: Eisele, K., Fishburne, P., & O’Rourke, J. S. (2010). Johnson & Johnson’s strategy with Motrin: The growing pains of social media. 10-10. Notre Dame, IN: The Eugene D. Fanning Center for Business Communication, Mendoza College of Business, University of Notre Dame. Publisher: The Eugene D. Fanning Center for Business Communication, Mendoza College of Business, University of Notre Dame DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781526405227 | Online ISBN: 9781526405227

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Abstract

Johnson & Johnson experienced the rapid spread of negative backlash through social media channels in response to an online Motrin advertisement. The incident raises a discussion on the opportunities and risks of using social media in marketing and communications outreach, as well as how social media efforts should align with the company’s overall business objectives.

Case

“Wearing your baby seems to be in fashion…plus it totally makes me look like an official mom. And

so if I look tired and crazy, people will understand why. Motrin® We feel your pain.”

An online ad created by Taxi Advertising and Design, an advertising agency headquartered in Toronto, On- tario with these words appeared on the Motrin website as an effort to target mothers who developed pain from carrying their babies around in slings. On Friday, November 14, 2008, 45 days after the ad was posted to the site, an influential mommy blogger with a significant Twitter following noticed the ad and began tweet- ing about her offense to the suggestion that moms use baby slings as fashion statements.1 Other influential mommy bloggers picked up on the thread, and from Friday into Saturday, the Motrin ad became one of the most tweeted about topics on Twitter, even amidst the highly-publicized 2008 presidential election of Barack Obama.2

On Saturday and Sunday, continual negative reactions appeared on Twitter. The conversation was tracked on Twitter by utilizing the hashtag “motrinmoms” that helped interested groups to closely follow the conversa- tion.3 The message moved into the blogosphere where several bloggers called for a boycott of Motrin, and harsh comments flooded message boards. Some angry consumers even created counter ads that they post- ed on YouTube.4 The messaging of the tweets and outcry was strong, and stated that the Motrin ad “trivial- ized women’s pain and the method of carrying babies.”5 As uproar spread through the various social media channels, the messaging shifted from “shame on” Johnson & Johnson to “where is a response” from Johnson & Johnson?6

The Opportunities of Social Media

Global brands have continually been increasing their social media activation in advertising and marketing, as companies recognize social media’s cost effectiveness and their ability to generate deep customer engage- ment as the consumer dictates on his or her own terms. Companies continue to realize that customer advo- cates are the most powerful marketing channel available, as people trust and listen to what others say most of all. The most difficult challenge for brands to succeed at this is to recruit the appropriate and influential advocates and leverage these associations; this has been notoriously difficult to achieve through traditional media. Social media provide a vehicle for a brand to learn and understand the way that customers respond and interact with a company’s products and services. Social media also provide forums, such as chat rooms, for customer communities to develop.7

Social media outreach also provides the opportunity to learn more about the company’s customer. As con- sumers continue to become more deeply involved with multiple social media channels, customer-volunteered information begins to further flesh out the consumer profile for the company. With more complete information,

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marketers are better able to facilitate messaging and placement toward a target customer group. Social me- dia provide companies with the opportunity to better and more effectively engage customers on a meaningful basis.8

Johnson & Johnson History

Johnson & Johnson was founded in 1885 by two brothers, James and Edward Mead Johnson, as a medical products company in New Brunswick, New Jersey. One year later, their brother, Robert, joined the company to make the antiseptic surgical dressing that he had developed. In 1921, Johnson & Johnson introduced two of its classic products that still exist today, the Band-Aid and Johnson’s Baby Cream.9

J&J purchased McNeil Labs in 1959, which launched Tylenol in 1960 as an over-the-counter drug. Through- out the 1970s, the company continued to focus on consumer products, with Tylenol becoming the top-selling painkiller. In 1982, crisis struck when Tylenol capsules were laced with cyanide, killing eight people. The com- pany immediately recalled 31 million bottles and redesigned the packaging to prohibit tampering – a response that cost the company $240 million but ultimately saved the Tylenol brand. J&J’s response has become well- known and is often used as a model for proper damage control and corporate best practices. In the 1990s, J&J continued its acquisition and diversification strategy and acquired Neutrogena in 1994 to further bolster its consumer product lines. The company bought the over-the-counter rights to Motrin in 1997 from Pharma- cia, which is now Pfizer. In 2006, the company acquired Pfizer’s consumer products business for $16.6 billion, which added approximately 40 brands to J&J’s portfolio. The company announced a major restructuring in 2007, trimming costs and executing job cuts mainly within its Pharmaceuticals segment and reinvesting in other areas.10

Johnson & Johnson now operates within three segments through more than 250 operating companies in ap- proximately 60 countries. J&J’s Pharmaceuticals division produces drugs for a variety of ailments including autoimmune diseases, neurological conditions, blood disorders and pain. Its Medical Devices and Diagnos- tics division offers monitoring devices, surgical equipment, orthopedic products, contact lenses and a variety of other products. The third division, J&J’s Consumer segment, makes over-the-counter drugs and assorted products for skin, baby and oral care, and first aid and women’s health. In 2009, Johnson & Johnson was ranked #33 in the Fortune 500 and reported nearly $62 Billion in sales and 115,500 employees.11

The company is renowned for its decentralized operating structure, with management teams having wide lat- itude in their decision-making. Johnson & Johnson has a strong drug development pipeline to address the competitive challenge of patent expiration, which is increasingly relevant as some of the company’s major products have recently lost patent protection. While the company’s Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices segments each account for more than 35% of company sales, challenges within these segments led to re- cent restructuring efforts by the company. Additionally, Johnson & Johnson’s Consumer segment has been growing through acquisitions, and offerings include brands such as Neutrogena, Tylenol, Listerine, Benadryl, Lubriderm, Rolaids, Sudafed, and Splenda.12

A Short History in Social Media at Johnson & Johnson

Johnson & Johnson has always set the standard for communication in the corporate world, so it should be no surprise that it has an extensive social media network in place to reach its many customers. With the on- slaught of new social media platforms, Johnson & Johnson has kept up to speed on all interfaces.

Ray Jordan joined Johnson & Johnson in 2003 as Vice President of Public Affairs and Corporate Communi-

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cation. Responsible for corporate communications and public affairs for the company, Jordan oversees the Public Affairs responsibilities and activities of the entire family of Johnson & Johnson operating companies.13 Jordan recognized that there were new groups in social media that were influencing online dialogue and John- son & Johnson needed to develop relationships with these bloggers. Jordan created an environment where the Corporate Communication team could explore the various social media networks.14

Kilmer House

Johnson & Johnson’s first attempt to enter the social media market was through the creation of Kilmer House. Created in 2006 by Corporate Communication team member Margaret Gurowitz, Kilmer House was Johnson & Johnson’s first attempt at a blog. Named after Dr. Fredrick Kilmer, the company’s first scientific director, Kilmer House serves as a history blog for the Johnson & Johnson Company.15 This was a safe and conserv- ative way to enter the blogosphere without causing any controversy.

Gurowitz still runs the blog as the company historian and she tries to reach out to groups interested in the his- tory of Johnson & Johnson who want to better understand the company. Within four years of posts, the blog summarizes: “One of the best ways to understand Johnson & Johnson is to know the Company’s history and the things that make it unique.”16 Gurowitz has covered topics over a wide spectrum including: the people who established Johnson & Johnson, some of its unusual products, early science and technology, the John- son & Johnson community, anniversaries, advertising, iconic products, innovations and trivia. At the bottom of every blog, readers are able to interact with the company by leaving comments which J&J can respond to in order to clarify questions that readers might pose.

Kilmer House allowed Johnson & Johnson to develop a comfort level with its own legal and regulatory depart- ment on how to manage new issues that could arise in the blogosphere.17 This blog set the stage for all of Johnson & Johnson’s social media platforms by developing ways to manage content created by Johnson & Johnson, as well as content created by its readers.

JNJ BTW

Kilmer House had allowed Johnson & Johnson to experiment with the voice it could establish online in ad- dition to the development of a two-way dialogue with its customers. In early 2007, approximately six months after Kilmer House had launched, Marc Monseau, Director, Corporate Communication, Social Media, created a new blog called Johnson & Johnson By The Way, or JNJ BTW. The blog summarizes its purpose by stating:

Everyone else is talking about our company, so why can’t we? There are more than 120,000people who work for Johnson & Johnson and its operating companies. I’m one of them, and through JNJ BTW, I will try to find a voice that often gets lost in formal communications.

This is a big step for us as a company. Anyone working for a large corporation will appreciate that there are many internal limitations on what we say and how we say it.

I’ve been reading blogs for only a few months now, but already it’s clear to me how important it is not just to watch, but to join in productively. Doing that will take some unlearning of old habits and traditional approaches to communicating—and I will have to find my own voice.

On JNJ BTW, there will be talk about Johnson & Johnson—what we are doing, how we are doing it and why. There will be comment on the news about our company and the industry—occasionally

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correcting any mistakes (not that that ever happens!) or simply providing more context. I hope and

expect that some of my colleagues will eventually join me on this blog.18

Johnson & Johnson needed a way to engage these bloggers and respond with its own story. JNJ BTW was purposely designed to allow Johnson & Johnson to discuss corporate topics, company strategy, emerging is- sues, and good works happening within the company in a slightly more informal manner.19

An example of this was when Jordan posted on JNJ BTW about Johnson & Johnson’s decision to sue the American Red Cross. Being well aware that suing the American Red Cross could backfire and cause injury to the company, Jordan used JNJ BTW as a platform to discuss why J&J came to this final decision. Jordan explained how the company tried almost every other remedy before pursuing legal action. His blog post not only tempered the anger in the blogosphere, but also created advocates that posted positive reactions on JNJ BTW and went as far as re-posting Jordan’s comments on their own blogs. Jordan’s post changed the entire attitude of the discussion online and worked exactly how Johnson & Johnson had hoped.20

JNJ YouTube Health Channel

A few months after Monseau launched the JNJ BTW blog, Rob Halper, Director of Video Communication, launched the Johnson & Johnson health channel on YouTube. With the concept of “videos to promote a better understanding of health,”21 the Johnson & Johnson health channel posts videos that provide context and in- formation about health issues and health topics. These videos do not deal with specific Johnson & Johnson products or brands. They offer general information on popular health topics, such as the long term effects of obesity, how to live with diabetes, bipolar disorder family support, and Alzheimer’s disease.

Facebook and Twitter

Following the relatively quick launches of two blogs and a YouTube channel, Johnson & Johnson opened a Facebook account in 2008. The Facebook account provided yet another channel of communication between Johnson & Johnson and its stakeholders. In 2009, Johnson & Johnson created a Twitter account to provide up-to-date information to consumers as well as to gather information. Johnson & Johnson now has three cor- porate Twitter accounts to its name. Monseau tweets for the JNJCOMM twitter account. Monseau will post on topics he finds interesting and topics that are being discussed on Johnson & Johnson’s other social media platforms.22

Johnson & Johnson Uses Social Media

The Motrin case of 2008 prompted Johnson & Johnson to think about becoming more involved with Twitter. The company noticed a large group of Twitter users were of interest to the company, due to the consumers’ buying power and influence. Johnson & Johnson wanted to use Twitter as a medium not only to engage its online stakeholders, but also to gather information from them, share thoughts with them, and give the stake- holders an informal way to talk with the company. As Monseau tried to figure out what kind of Twitter account to create, he grouped all Twitter accounts into five different categories:

• Customer Service: The company viewed the JetBlue Twitter account as a perfect example of a cus- tomer service account. JetBlue uses Twitter to keep customers up-to-date on flight delays and can- cellations and allows passengers to file complaints about lost luggage.

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• Expert Source: The accounts can provide information and key insights by an official who is knowl- edgeable both from within the company and out in public.

• News Gatherer: The account can take information about one’s business and the industry the com- pany is a part of, gather the information, and provide it to customers as a news source.

• Suggestion Box: The account can solicit input and ideas from Twitter followers that can be redis- tributed to all interested parties.

• Special Offers: The account can be a location to distribute coupons and provide special offers.

Monseau and the social media team at J&J wanted to use Twitter to provide information as an Expert Source and News Gatherer.23

Johnson & Johnson wanted to increase its ability to listen, respond, and engage with its customers through the use of Twitter. In order to do this effectively, Monseau and his team had to ensure there was a system of processes in place that would enable the right people in the company to speak to each of their areas of expertise. In order to allow these subject matter experts to respond quickly, J&J had to grant its employees a degree of flexibility and trust to answer questions in a timely manner with the understanding that the respon- ders knew their limitations of what can and cannot be posted. Monseau likes to refer to these understood limitations as guardrails:

“We have specific guardrails that have been set up where we are allowed to drive all over the road and say certain things and publish different topics. If there is a topic that goes beyond those guardrails, we have to get approval for it, go through an approval process, and get sign off for it. We all have to keep in mind and be aware of where those limits are, where those guardrails fit, and if we go outside of them we have to make sure the company understands what direction we are going

in.”24

Without this flexibility and trust, J&J would not be able to post information fast enough to meet consumer needs. This would pose a challenge for the company because customers would look elsewhere for their in- formation, and J&J would no longer be the information provider.

Johnson & Johnson Responds

On Sunday, November 16, 2008, Johnson & Johnson became aware of the outraged discussion regarding the Motrin online advertisement. The company was well aware that a significant number of mommy bloggers had worked in the areas of advertising and media, and the possibility for a media firestorm was sizeable.25 Monseau and the social media team at J&J knew that a response was in order.

Additionally, Monseau and his team would need to assess the expectations and plans for Johnson & John- son’s social media outreach. The team must also evaluate what opportunities to pursue in the future and how its social media strategy aligns with the company’s business objectives as a whole. Finally, as social media continues to grow in its applications and consumer involvement, Monseau must gauge if the size and the composition of his corporate social media team is sufficient.

Discussion Questions: Johnson & Johnson Responds to the Motrin Case

• How should Johnson & Johnson respond to the crisis? • What audience should the company reach out to? • What member(s) of the company should engage the audience? • What does the company offer to those offended by the ad?

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• How does Johnson & Johnson track the success of its response?

Discussion Questions: Johnson & Johnson Assesses Social Media Strategy

• What will Johnson & Johnson’s social media strategy be moving forward? • What other social media platforms should J&J utilize? • Is the social media team big enough or should J&J grow it? • What metrics should the social media team utilize to measure the success of its social media out-

reach? • How can J&J link the social media objectives to the overall company’s business objectives?

References

1. Wheaton, K. (2008, December), “Middle road in Motrin-gate was right choice for J&J.” Advertising Age, 79(44), 12, Retrieved September 20, 2010, from ABI/INFORM Global (Document ID: 1611223211).

2. Telephone conference with Marc Monseau, Johnson & Johnson, New Brunswick, New Jersey, 21 Septem- ber 2010.

3. Anonymous, “All companies simply must get up to speed on Twitter,” (2008, November). PRweek, 11(46), 6, Retrieved September 20, 2010, from ABI/INFORM Trade & Industry (Document ID: 1665581141).

4. Zerillo, N., (2008, November), “J&J reaches out to mothers to apologize for its Motrin ad,” PRweek, 11(46), 1, Retrieved September 20, 2010, from ABI/INFORM Trade & Industry (Document ID: 1665581021).

5. Shirley S. Wang, (2008, November 18), “J&J Pulls Online Motrin Ad After Social-Media Backlash,” Wall Street Journal (Eastern Edition), p. B.4, Retrieved September 20, 2010, from ABI/INFORM Global (Document ID: 1596949231).

6. Telephone conference with Marc Monseau, Johnson & Johnson, New Brunswick, New Jersey, 21 Septem- ber 2010.

7. Plimsoll, S., & Thorpe, A., (2010, July), “Find and target customers in the social media maze,” Marketing: Road to recovery, 10-11, Retrieved from ABI/INFORM Global (Document ID: 2109794771).

8. Ibid.

9. Johnson & Johnson Medical Ltd., (15 September), Hoover’s Company Records, 135526, Retrieved Sep- tember 26, 2010, from Hoover’s Company Records. (Document ID: 769857951).

10. Ibid.

11. Ibid.

12. Ibid.

13. JNJ BTW blog, “Contributing Authors,” http://jnjbtw.com/jnj-btw-authors/

14. Telephone conference with Marc Monseau, Johnson & Johnson, New Brunswick, New Jersey, 21 Sep- tember 2010.

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http://jnjbtw.com/jnj-btw-authors/

15. Kilmer House blog, “About Kilmer House.” http://www.kilmerhouse.com/about/

16. Ibid.

17. Telephone conference with Marc Monseau, Johnson & Johnson, New Brunswick, New Jersey, 21 Sep- tember 2010.

18. JNJ BTW Our People and Perspectives blog, “About JNJ BTW,” http://jnjbtw.com/about-jnj-btw/

19. Telephone conference with Marc Monseau, Johnson & Johnson, New Brunswick, New Jersey, 21 Sep- tember 2010.

20. Ibid.

21. Johnson & Johnson Health Channel http://www.youtube.com/user/jnjhealth

22. Telephone conference with Marc Monseau, Johnson & Johnson, New Brunswick, New Jersey, 21 Sep- tember 2010.

23. e-Patient Connections Conference, “How J&J Joined the Twittersphere,” Presentation by Marc Monseau, October 27, 2009.

24. Telephone conference with Marc Monseau, Johnson & Johnson, New Brunswick, New Jersey, 21 Sep- tember 2010.

25. Wheaton, K., (2008, December), “Middle road in Motrin-gate was right choice for J&J,” Advertising Age, 79(44), 12, Retrieved September 20, 2010, from ABI/INFORM Global. (Document ID: 1611223211).

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http://www.kilmerhouse.com/about/

http://jnjbtw.com/about-jnj-btw/

http://www.youtube.com/user/jnjhealth

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Johnson & Johnson’s Strategy with Motrin: The Growing Pains of Social Media

Case

Abstract