Describe why the Tylenol tampering case is relevant to an understanding of consumer purchase decision-making

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Marketers sometimes struggle to dispel negative perceptions, ideas or facts — mental files — consumers might hold in their minds about specific organizations and their products. Marketers cannot expect consumers always to feel positively about their organizations and families of products.
The source of negative opinions varies. They can stem from the marketer's history or certain experiences consumers have had with an organization or its product line. On occasion, competitors' marketing efforts may contribute to these perceptions or negative feelings may merely be a by-product of the general marketing environment. In certain instances, as in the Tylenol case described below, events overtake a marketer. Whatever the source, marketers must be alert to the existence of negative consumer perceptions and take steps to crystallize opinion in the opposite direction.
When Tylenol capsules laced with cyanide killed consumers in 1982, Johnson & Johnson was able to calm public fear and minimize criticism by taking several active steps to alter the perceptions that might have led to the demise of the product. First, the marketer recalled the entire product inventory from store shelves. Then Johnson & Johnson revised Tylenol's format and packaging in order to mitigate the possibility of future, similar incidents. The company announced these changes in a major communication campaign. That effort was intended to restore consumer trust in Tylenol by displacing negative mental files through actions and communications designed to rebuild confidence in the product.