The Facebook Crisis: A Radical Idea — Retool, Reboot and Rebrand When It's Fixed

Taking a Page from the 1982 Tylenol Crisis: Take it off the Market, then Bring it Back

Andrew Blum, Principal, AJB CommunicationsIn another time and long before the Internet and even longer before Facebook, a consumer brand company pulled its product off the market after a madman put cyanide in its popular painkiller Tylenol.Is there a lesson here for Facebook? I believe that there is. Let's take a brief look back.In 1982, seven people died in the Chicago area when they ingested Tylenol laced with cyanide. In what was later called the gold standard in crisis PR, Johnson & Johnson, maker of Tylenol, distributed warnings to hospitals and distributors, and halted Tylenol production and advertising. Soon thereafter, it issued a nationwide recall of Tylenol products.Its market share collapsed but it rebounded, a recovery credited to J&J's prompt reaction. In November of that year, it reintroduced capsules in a new, triple-sealed package, added heavy price promotions and within several years, it rebounded. This didn't stop three more deaths in 1986 from tampered capsules in Yonkers, N.Y., but J&J changed the pharma industry and crisis PR with its response to the crisis.The Facebook crisis isn't a life and death situation but it calls out for drastic action.Facebook is in the spotlight, its stock is taking a major hit and its image is kaput. What do they say to key stakeholders, including employees, customers, investors, the media and their corporate board?Perhaps they should do what J&J did with Tylenol: take it off the market. I know Tylenol isn’t the same as a digital app, and I know you just can't flip a switch and shut it down. But what Facebook needs is a complete overhaul of its technology, personnel and policies, and a rebrand. It's already too late in its response.Mark Zuckerberg first waited too long to make a statement in a CNN interview about Cambridge Analytica -- in  today's social media age, bad news travels in an instant. Zuckerberg, of all people, as co-founder and chairman of Facebook, should know this. He called this "a major trust issue" and apologized. That wasn't enough.The story broke on a weekend and he didn't go on CNN to apologize until the following Wednesday. In that span, the media piled on and consumers did too. Facebook stock has been tanking as well.According to the NY Times, the hashtag #DeleteFacebook appeared more than 10,000 times on Twitter within a two-hour period on that Wednesday. On that Tuesday, it was mentioned 40,398 times, according to the analytics service Digimind. And now, Zuckerberg says he will talk to Congress. Will it be enough?For Facebook and Zuckerberg, all of this comes after weeks and months of revelations during the Russia probe that Facebook and other social media were apparently compromised and used for political purposes by bots and Russians during the 2016 elections.People do care about these kinds of things; they didn't sign up to friend people and then have their data compromised like this. People care about their digital footprints and how they are used. Yes, when you go online, there are things you have to accept and there is a risk. But there is a line and Facebook and Cambridge Analytica have crossed it.There are several other recent examples of breaches of corporate trust, such as the Equifax breach. It is too early to tell what lasting lessons that one has. But the Tylenol crisis has a lot of lessons for Facebook in the right way how to handle a consumer product crisis.It's time for Facebook to take a cue from J&J. Do a recall – shut it down – or the digital equivalent, and reboot and rebrand. It may be the only way to get the public back in their corner. [author]About the Author: Andrew Blum is a PR consultant and media trainer and principal of AJB Communications. He has directed PR for professional services and financial services firms, NGOs, agencies and other clients. As a PR executive, and formerly as a journalist, he has been involved on both sides of the media aisle in some of the most media intensive crises of the past 25 years. He covered the 1986 Tylenol (second) crisis in New York for UPI and Time Magazine. Contact him at ajbcomms@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter: @ajbcomms [/author]