Johnson & Johnson’s rapid response to an FDA panel’s recommendation a couple of weeks ago of sweeping limits on acetaminophen (the generic name for Tylenol) has been widely reported. Most of the coverage has focused on offline advertising, particularly ads in USA Today. We wanted to take a look at how Johnson & Johnson responded online to protect its extremely valuable brand.
Searches for “tylenol” increased 50% in the week to July 4, 2009 (the FDA issued it’s recommendation on the 1st). The following table lists the top search terms consumers entered into search engines in the week to July 4 that included the word “tylenol”. The table clearly illustrates that consumers were looking to find out more about the safety of Tylenol and the FDA’s recommendation.

After performing the above searches, consumers visited Health & Medical websites (19%) and News and Media websites (9%). For the individual term “tylenol” consumers visited Google News (28%) and Tylenol.com (22%).
Tylenol quickly responded to the FDA’s recommendation by acting to assuage consumer fears, and they did this right at the source consumers were turning to for more information: search engines. Tylenol changed the message on its paid search listings to spread the word that Tylenol is safe. The paid search ad allowed Johnson and Johnson to appear at the top of the search engine results page, ahead of results for news organizations, blogs, and sites attacking Tylenol. The screen shot below shows one of the ads Johnson and Johnson ran.
Paid search is a perfect mechanism to quickly respond to a potential threat to a brand. Whether consumers click on your link or not is not as important as getting your message across. J&J’s ad is also subtle enough that it is unlikely to stir up more panic.