Johnson & Johnson 6
Section 13: Measurement and Evaluation
Johnson and Johnson company is doing well in its effort to achieve its campaign goals. It is evident that the company has undertaken a number of communications campaigns aimed at generally improving its image while growing its profitability at the same time. In this respect, the company has effective short-term goals that go a long way to contributing to its long-term goals. In the same light, ‘Johnson and Johnson’ has done well to outline the most significant needs of its clientele in addition to figuring out best ways to meet their needs through advertisements depicting the company’s effectiveness. To this effect, ‘Johnson and Johnson’ has employed a number of strategies which have proved profitable.
Strategy 1: Mothers celebration
‘Johnson and Johnson’ is a corporation that deals in an array of baby products meaning that mothers constitute to its large clientele base. The corporation’s communication campaign has been to the effect to appreciate mothers for their efforts and in turn increase the liking of the company’s products. This is evident from the advertisement on national television the ‘Johnson and Johnson’ ran in July 2008 where popular U.S. Olympic athletes such as Sarah Haskins, Shalane Flagan, and Jarrod Shoemaker appreciated their respective mother for selflessly nurturing and supporting them till adulthood.
Likewise, the corporation’s campaign goals have been productive through its commitment to corporate social responsibility. Through its skin care brand, the company sponsored the Olympics, something which increased its sales by 5% above the normal in the period of July-August 2008. The communication campaigns achieved the desired results as indicated by positive feedback from several mothers who felt appreciated by the corporation and developed the need to purchase the company’s products.
Strategy two: Nursing Campaign
‘Johnson and Johnson” company has also been successful with its campaign goals through the nursing campaign. The corporation has advance campaign strategies to make sure that nurses are familiar with its pharmaceutical and medical products in order to test them and ultimately increase sales. Furthermore, the company has taken upon itself to help tackle the national problem of shortage of nurses by training and facilitating integration of new nurses into the health sector. The net result of this strategy has been increased awareness of its product and improved corporate image to the community. The feeling of responsibility and concern that ‘Johnson and Johnson’ has managed to create has given it much needed competitive advantage over other players in the medical industry.
Section 14: Preparing for a Crisis
‘Johnson and Johnson’ would be at risk of shutting down if it was struck by another major corporate scandal such as the 1982 Tylenol Crisis. In the infamous scandal, a malicious person or persons switched Tylenol Extra-Strength capsules with the lethal cyanide-laced capsules on the shelves of over a half-dozen stores the state of Chicago. The consequence of this was the unfortunate deaths of seven people who purchased and used the products. There is no doubt that if a disaster of the such nature and magnitude befell ‘Johnson and Johnson’ one more time, the company will be at risk of being deregistered and collapsing. This is because a second such corporate scandal will be read as negligence and ethical failure to learn to learn from past mistakes, generally identifiable as “corporate misbehavior”.
However, there is no doubt that ‘Johnson and Johnson’ is one of the successful corporations that are regarded as models of business ethics in the United States and around the world. This is to say that the company has sufficient “reputation capital” in store to withstand a major corporate scandal were it to occur today. This is evident from the text-book effective response by which ‘Johnson and Johnson’ handled the 1982 Tylenol crisis (Fombrun, 1996). The company strengthened its reputation through its successful management of the crisis which involves quick action, putting customer safety first, restoring customer confidence through strategic interventions such as rectification, sympathy, together with reparation.
In light of this, ‘Johnson and Johnson’s’ can rely on the strong reputation of the company to weather any emergent storm. There is question that the corporation is well prepared for a crisis. This is evidenced by the Business continuity planning that the company has adopted over the years (Society for Human Resource Management, 2006). This is meant to maintain the flow of its products and services to its customers by sustaining a state of readiness in anticipation of man-made or natural events that could lead to business interruptions. As such, ‘Johnson and Johnson’ has a common principal by which all its operating companies adhere to: “to ensure that our people, facilities and products remain safe and secure, and that the ability to serve our customers remains uninterrupted.” The three core elements of the business continuity planning are: Emergency Response, Incident Management, and Operations Recovery. The preparedness of the company for a crisis is further emphasized by the fact that each operating company location boosts of an effective Crisis Management Team consisting of executive representatives drawn from various disciplines (Okolita, 2009). Procedures for instant transfer of information to the staff, customers, the media and regulatory agencies are included in the crisis communication segment of the plan. Furthermore, ‘Johnson and Johnson’ put in place a multi-disciplinary Pandemic Preparedness Task Force in 2005 consisting of experts from the security, medical, health and safety, scientific, and human resource areas.
Section 15: Communications Management Process
‘Johnson and Johnson’ company has embraced outsourcing in advertising, public relations and a full-service Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) firm. JWT is the company tasked with creating ads relating to J&J’s global sponsorship campaign of the forthcoming FIFA World Cup 2014 in 2014.
Advertising
J&J has outsourced its advertising needs to companies best place to execute right fundamentals of utilizing execution styles for advertising (Anthonissen, 2008). The agencies have grown the sales of the company by employing all sorts of media planning using images of cute babies and product advertising. J&J has grown to master the “advertising response function”.
Integrated Marketing Communications
J&J company has been successful in Integrated Marketing Communications. The company is dedicated to human care across the world. Following human care, J&J is focused on the welfare of new born children where it promotes baby care products. J&J has an exceptional pack promotional mix consisting of such promotional tools as advertising, sales promotion as well as personal selling. The company targets parents by advertising products in form of images, commercials and showing images or motion pictures of infants.
Section 16: Summary and Commentary
The company has been largely successful in its efforts to effectively integrate communications campaigns by marrying its public relations, advertising, marketing and publicity tactics. The company has invested heavily in public relations tactics which have in turn contributed for a greater fraction of its sales. There has been greater focus on the greatest consumers of the company’s products, where the consumers are appreciated and given chance to interact with the company and help it serve them better (Anthonissen, 2008). Furthermore, the company is actively involved in training programs which ensures there are sufficient service providers for the consumers.
Likewise, the publicity tactics of the company are commendable because it is ready to sacrifice anything else including sales for the sake of protecting its public image, something that is beneficial in the long run. The company has made sure to conduct thorough investigation of effective advertising campaigns practiced around the world (Boone, 2011). Studies of the behavior patterns of its consumers has been undertaken and precise attention-grabbing advertisements designed. The adverts are integrated into the company’s public relations campaigns to boost the popularity of the company and its products. It has also been overly effective to inform the consumers of the possible side effects of the products the company offers.
References:
Anthonissen, Peter. (2008). Crisis Communication: Practical PR Strategies for Reputation Management & Company Survival. London, Kogan Page Publishers.
Boone, E. Louis, & Kurtz, L. David. (2011). Contemporary Business. Hoboken, John Wiley & Sons.
Fombrun, J. Charles. (1996). Reputation: Realizing Value from the Corporate Image. Boston, Harvard Business Press.
Okolita, Patricia. (2009). Building an Enterprise Business Continuity Program. California, Taylor & Francis
Society for Human Resource Management (U.S.). (2006). The Essentials of Corporate Communications and Public Relations. Boston, Harvard Business Press.
