Markets

What Not to Do in a Crisis: Advil Kicks Tylenol While It's Down - 9 Months Too Late

By Jim Edwards

Updated on: October 6, 2010 / 9:34 AM EDT / MoneyWatch

Nine months into the Tylenol recall crisis -- with nary a bottle of the stuff to be found in some stores -- and Pfizer (PFE) is only now responding with competitive ads for Advil that kick Johnson & Johnson (JNJ)'s brand while it's down. This is a textbook case of what not to do when your competitor suffers misfortune.

With Tylenol products recalled for quality problems eight times in the last year, and with the brand doing almost no advertising since February, all Pfizer had to do was stand up and say "Hey, Advil is still available." Instead, it plunged itself into a seven-month-long series of ad agency contract reviews.

Here's the timeline -- bear in mind that while Pfizer's brand managers were shuffling their vendor rosters, J&J's Tylenol factory was shuttered, its management was being churned to root out bad apples, and its top brass were called to Congress to give embarrassing testimony about their incompetence:

March: Digital ad duties moved to Omnicom (OMC)'s Tribal DDB.
March: Media duties previously done in-house at Pfizer's Wyeth acquisition, including Advil, are contracted out to Havas (HAV.PA)'s Carat unit.
July: Pfizer decides to review creative duties on the Advil ad account.
Sept. 8: creative duties moved from WPP (WPPGY)'s Grey Group to Dentsu (4324:T)'s McGarryBowen.
Sept. 21: Pfizer launches review of its entire $700 million media buying business, including Advil. That review remains unresolved.

Those moves represent $80 million in ad buying on the Advil business and $700 million in buying on all Pfizer's brands. Could management have found anything more distracting to do during this time? Sure, maybe the vendors Pfizer had at the beginning of the year weren't the best, but this was not a situation in which the company was in need of amazing new ideas. It just had to advertise its presence and remind consumers that other products were in short supply or recalled.

The results speak for themselves. Despite Tylenol's woes consumers remain more loyal to it than Advil. And just as Advil's new campaign comes on-air, J&J has resumed shipping some brands. Nice field goal, Charlie Brown.

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