Tylenol Trouble: When Misinformation Goes Viral

David Gallagher (00:10):

Hey everyone. Welcome. You found us on another Friday with the UN Spun, a live look at the world through the eyes of PR people. I'm one of your hosts, David Gallagher, sitting here in London, joined by the irrepressible dug downs in Calgary.

Doug Downs (00:24):

I

David Gallagher (00:28):

We're flying by the seat of our pants without our third partner in crime. Farzana

Doug Downs (00:35):

She? She is. She's normally in London, sort of with you. Not with you, but same city. She's in New York at the UN

David Gallagher (00:42):

Actually, she has been in New York at the un. She is back in London at a very fancy lunch with

Doug Downs (00:48):

Okay. See, I was thinking she was caught on an escalator at the un and I could understand you go on these escalators, especially at the un, they're pretty sketchy and they break down at any particular time. At most unfortunate times they break down.

David Gallagher (01:04):

Well, this is the difference between Farzana and you and me, Doug. I mean, so she spent the first half of the week at the UN General Assembly. She's now at a very fancy lunch for the Chartered, the Royalty Chartered Institute of pr. Last week I just saw on her Instagram, she was at some fancy flagship store opening on Region Street. So that's how she spends her time. And I was thinking, for me a special occasion is when I go out for pizza rather than ordering pizza in. So that's how you know the difference between me and far. I

Doug Downs (01:33):

Agree. I find a T-shirt that doesn't have a pizza stain on it, and that's when I know I'm going out. Right? Or the bill of my cap is bent properly. Something like

David Gallagher (01:42):

That. Well, we probably just lost half of our audience now knowing that the Farzana is not here, but they're in for a special treat. You have kindly suggested that we invite Michelle Garrett onto the show. I've known her for years. I know she's going to have a lot of good comments to make and we're grateful for her presence. So maybe tell us a little bit about Michelle. Hey Michelle. Michelle.

Michelle Garrett (02:05):

Hello. Thank you for having me. Very happy to have you here.

Doug Downs (02:09):

Awesome to have you. Let me introduce you semi former Michelle, you're a B2B public relations consultant, writer, a speaker. You help companies in tech, industrial and manufacturing, earn media coverage, create content and build thought leadership. You're the author of B2B PR that gets results. A book I don't have a hard copy of, I'm just saying. Not saying, just saying, but left off the list. A frequent contributor to outlets like MuckRack and notified regular speaker at industry events, frequent speaker on Stories and Strategies podcast. I think you've been on five times.

Michelle Garrett (02:50):

I think so.

Doug Downs (02:51):

Something like that. And you're the host, you have your own podcast. You're the host of PR explored the podcast.

Michelle Garrett (02:57):

Yes, correct. Thank you.

David Gallagher (03:01):

We're so happy to have you here. I don't know how much you know about our show, but on Wednesday, Thursday we start texting each other with what we think are kind of the most interesting stories. Usually from a PR angle. It does dip occasionally into politics because politics are kind of driving the news cycle. But we try to look at this more from, how would you explain this? What lessons can you take away from a PR point of view? So I know we've already kind of flagged the Tylenol question in us is something we might want to explore. I'm kind of interested in that Doug has been interested in the Jimmy Kimmel, which maybe is morphed into an A BC story.

Doug Downs (03:39):

I think it has. It's kind of a Disney thing and from a PR lens. Anyway, the Jimmy Kimmel with the PR lens is one thing, but I think it's really how Disney I think got caught in a hard situation. So I want to talk through that.

David Gallagher (03:53):

So we want to talk about that. If we have time, we'd like to talk or I just discovered this last night, there's a new IPSO study brand America that talks about a significant decline in the intent to buy and trust for American brands by non-Americans. And the difference is pretty startling. So I thought that might be an interesting thing take a look at. And of course please chime in anything you want to throw into the conversation that's about as structured as it gets by us just sort of agreeing in advance what we might talk about. But I did want to talk about the Tylenol story. It really struck a personal cord with me. I have spent a lot of my career dealing with product safety issues in the healthcare and medical space. I've dealt with product recalls with changes to labels with big breaking scientific studies, pointing to adverse reactions.

(04:45):

I even worked on the Tylenol brand when it was a j and j product, not on the masterclass tampering crisis case somewhat after that. But I'm pretty familiar with how things work in that space and I just thought it was a really troubling development in the way product safety concerns were raised. And just for people who don't know about it, I can't imagine there aren't too many people who haven't heard about it, but President Trump during a hastily called press conference basically told people who are using acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol, it's called Paracetamol in the uk, basically said, if you're pregnant, you shouldn't use it. It's been linked to autism. And that's a very strong overstatement of the facts and obviously led to a lot of concern and confusion. And I host a big PR chat, I mean several other kind of communications chats and everybody kind of jokes that, oh, you got pity the PR team at Tylenol right now and you do to some degree.

(05:47):

I was on the PR team for Tylenol, but I guess my reaction was really maybe a different ranking of stakeholders. And I'm guessing this is what was happening at Kin view, the new owners of Tylenol in their headquarters. I think the first people you got to worry about are mothers, expectant mothers families, recent mothers, how much concern this must be causing them. So obviously we've got to worry. They've got to be worried about how do you communicate with your consumers, not actually patients because this is an over the counter product, but how do you worry about your consumers then how do you get aligned with healthcare professionals? I'm guessing most people if they're not interacting on this particular question with their OB GYN, they're talking to maybe a midwife, maybe to their pharmacist. So there's a lot of people you got to communicate with there to get aligned.

(06:37):

There are your biggest customers, your Walmarts and your Costcos, people who are distributing the product need to get aligned. And of course you got to worry about your shareholders and the people who are invested in the business. And I just can't imagine the activity, the frantic activity. It must be happening right now. But I'm just wondering what you both think both about the issue. And again, I don't understand the political dynamics. Let's put that to one side. I don't get what was gained by that. But now this whole issue has been introduced into the public sphere and I'm wondering how do you think the company is responding? What do you think they should be saying? What's your take?

Michelle Garrett (07:19):

Well, I do have thoughts. So I mean I'm of the mind that I might go out and buy more Tylenols. It might be a good thing for them. Sales, I don't know about that. But as somebody who has a mom of two, when I was expecting that was they advised to take Tylenol. And of course I've also seen called into question, should you give your little ones Tylenol perhaps. I just think it's going to cause a lot of issues because it's very safe. I don't think there's data that says it isn't safe because when the kids are little, that's what they tell you to give them too. So I had a friend this week go into a pharmacy and someone, she was buying Tylenol and the clerk actually said something to her about, is that okay, is that safe for you? And I'm like, wow, okay. We shouldn't be calling into question. And the fact that people just listen to this advice from somebody, from folks who aren't really medical professionals is something. So I hope I'm going to support Tylenol and continue to buy and take Tylenol.

David Gallagher (08:27):

Do you think most moms get it? What's the decibel level of concern? Are people rolling their eyes at this or do you think this has created concern where there wasn't concern before?

Michelle Garrett (08:39):

Well I think to people that listen to what comes out of this administration, they would believe what they say and that's very detrimental potentially. So the people for mean, for example, on threads where I spend some time, people are largely like what they are not buying into it. But again, it probably depends on where you spend time and who you listen to. But I hope that people will listen to the actual medical community because I think, again, I'm not going to name names of all the organizations that have come out and said Tylenol is safe and this advice, this is not medical advice that you should be following. And it's not medical advice at all actually.

Doug Downs (09:30):

And sometimes Trump just starts lipping off about things and I think he got caught in a moment where he was unprepared. He didn't know how to pronounce Acetaminophen clearly stumbled over it named Tylenol, which I agree that's a potential lawsuit there. Whether Ken View chooses to pursue that or not, I have no idea just looking at the stock price to see the impact. And it's hard to pin any impact to the stock price from this fiasco because it's been on a slide for months. So the stock price in Ken View has been heading downward for a while and that's probably because they knew the market is known that the FDA was sour on acetaminophen to begin with. So I think Trump got caught lipping off and David to the science and you worked at Tylenol. There have long been studies that associates Tylenol with autism. Very important word because coffee is associated with cancer for heaven's sakes. I know that from my time working in the electrical industry. So it's not saying it's benign, but these are weak associations to say the word link or linked. That's the disastrous piece here. It's a point in time where messaging word by word is actually really important.

David Gallagher (10:56):

Yeah, well I didn't work for Tylenol, I worked for an agency that supported Tylenol, so I don't want to misstate that. But I had for a long time I was pretty steeped in the science and we could have a whole show on the difference between cause and correlation. The example I always like is that crime goes up in the summer and ice cream sales go up in the summer. You could say there's a correlation, but there's not, probably not causality in that. I also don't want discount the very distinct possibility that there could be an actual causation, but none of the science suggests that right now at all. And I think this probably has introduced an unnecessary element of concern when you've got a lot of other things as an expectant mother or a recent family or people with new kids to worry about. This shouldn't be one of the things you have to worry about.

(11:45):

But from a corporate response, I have wondered now, I honestly dunno, maybe there's a lawyer listening who could write in for us. I don't know what legal recourse you have. I mean, can you sue the White House? I don't know. I guess they could try. I think they probably have to show some sort of malice that he knew it was untrue. They probably could show some sort of material damage. I'm sure whether the stock price started sliding before or not, this probably didn't help it. But from a PR point of view, I think they've been pretty forceful from what I can tell, they pushed back pretty hard. I think they're working together with the support from the medical and public health community, from the pharmacy community. So I think they're doing the right things. I think the question will be can they just write out this storm or do they need to continue to push? Eva has a

Doug Downs (12:38):

Comment. I like Eva's question here. It's a good one for Michelle. She's asking about the public response in the us. So Michelle, you said you were tempted to go out and just buy more, start pumping more Tylenol, which is probably the wrong way to go because the studies say use as directed, don't start pumping Tylenol like a test. I

Michelle Garrett (12:57):

Don't mean take a lot. I mean let's go stock up before they pull it off the shelves potentially. And for some people with high blood pressure are the conditions that is the only thing they can take. They cannot take ibuprofen for. It makes your blood pressure go up higher. So I mean, I'm floored not Michelle. Yes,

Doug Downs (13:18):

You're in Columbus, south of you, Cincinnati or Cincinnati, right, got sort of a more southern field to it just north of Kentucky.

Michelle Garrett (13:27):

How

Doug Downs (13:27):

Do people in Cincinnati feel about Tylenol? Are they potentially not going to use Tylenol, pregnant women, or are they not the hell with this?

Michelle Garrett (13:38):

I really feel like people in larger cities are going to continue to use it. I feel like this is more, again, and not to go too far here, but I think this is depending on who you listen to, perhaps where you live in a smaller community, rural community or something like that perhaps. But yeah, no, I haven't yet seen and it's early, a lot of people saying, well, I'm never taking Tylenol again. Because again, doctors will tell you to take Tylenol when you're in the hospital, not even as a new mom. They give you Tylenol. So just so far away there are no grounds for it.

David Gallagher (14:26):

What a time to be alive. Well, sorry. Thanks for letting me talk a little bit about Tylenol. Like can say my heart does go out for the PR change, but really it goes out for people who are worried about this when I don't think they really need to be. Doug. Last week we talked a little bit about the Jimmy Kimmel saga, which moved quickly into new territory this week. And I don't think either one of us predicted that he'd be back on the air quite sort

Doug Downs (14:52):

Sort of powerful sort of back right about a quarter of the A BC stations. The ones that are managed through the ownership groups and Sinclair, they still won't put Kimmel back on the air for the things that he said. And I understand why they're a bit lit up about it. I mean, the controversy begins with Kimmel shortly after the assassination of Charlie Kirk saying, and I quote, many in mega land are working hard to capitalize on the murder of Charlie Kirk. And he has since he hasn't apologized, but he has since recognized that he probably shouldn't have said that he stepped too far and I appreciate that at the wrong time. And he was pulled off the air by A, B, C, and then Disney announced this past week that no, he's back on the air, but they don't completely control it. About a quarter of the A BC stations run by those ownership groups have decided no, they're not putting Kimmel back on the air. He had some, was it some 6 million people watch his monologue the night that he returned? Massive, massive audience, right? Probably a one time audience for him, but

David Gallagher (16:03):

Well, it was almost maybe it an illustration of the Michelle Garrett effect of a stockpiling Jimmy Kimmel when he came back and who knows how long he's going to be on. But to me, again, separating the actual what he said and the reaction to it, it just shows that we live in a different time right now. And I think that his show actually, well, it got a boost from this and I think it will continue in some other format, probably streaming or offline or as its own podcast and show. And it probably won't be on late night linear tv. I'm not sure that that was a sustainable path anyway, but it's just interesting what kind of jolted this action and his numbers were better without having as many stations carry him. So

Doug Downs (16:51):

It's interesting,

(16:52):

And I dunno if it's the Barbara Streisand, in fact that's a little bit different, but I call it the Democrat Party 2024 effect where they tried desperately to keep Trump from even being on the ballot and it backfired tremendously on them, right? It worked the other way. So just the playbook works across party lines. Michelle, for me, I'm going to test this with you. It's not so much the Kimmel story so much as the Disney story. From my perspective, Disney's caught in a tough place. Kimmel made some remarks that for half the country are offensive. So they reacted within the ecosphere. Kimmel was taken off the air. I understand why a stand was made because we're constantly seeing studies that brands have to show their principles. So he was taken off the air and then this big hullabaloo, the A LCU responded, they had a lot of Hollywood celebrities sign on with it.

(17:51):

And they don't always sign on with the A LCU with a letter saying, no Kimmel should be put back on the air in the interest of free speech, put back on the air. And it was Disney that stepped forward and more or less apologized for having taken him off the air. At the same time, I think Disney's caught in a hard place this time. They responded, they took a stand going back a few years with the don't say gay bill in Florida. They didn't respond and they got crucified this time. They do respond and they get crucified. They try to play the middle because taking a side for them is disastrous. They kind of have to play the middle. And America is so divided in the end, you're red or you're blue. There doesn't seem to be any purple anymore.

Michelle Garrett (18:38):

Well guess how Disney has responded and Hulu guess how they responded by raising prices? They hike their rates and I'm like, wow. I mean talk about in your face to their audience. That's my biggest takeaway I think, is that just surely the price hike was in the works before all of this started. Of course, I get it. However, read the room. I mean, don't throw gasoline on a fire. I mean, they had to have known this and then that makes me think, well then they surely just don't care. They're just like, Nope, we are just doing it anyway. And they've already lost in astounding amount. And again, this is interesting to me because people say these boycotts don't work well. I mean power to the people on this one. I think it kind of did work. So we'll see.

David Gallagher (19:34):

Yeah, I have no idea where this goes or really what this means, which is probably a theme from my comments most weeks. But if you try to step back and you look at the media environment right now and you think about how difficult, and I'm not defending or supporting how Disney handled this, but you've got distributors in the form of their affiliate networks that are running the old school, turn on the TV at 11 and watch Jimmy Kimmel show, which is a declining market. They've got their own streaming services that are probably the most important part of the revenue. I haven't looked that up to confirm it, where they took a beating because people were canceling. You've got talent past, present, and future saying, we're not going to be part of this unless you start standing up to this behavior, this administration. And then we've got Jimmy Kimmel himself who now has a bigger microphone, a bigger megaphone than he had before.

(20:32):

I don't think Disney was particularly agile in the way they handled this in the first place. I thought it was a little hamfisted. And I don't think that they particularly reintroduced Jimmy in any sort of meaningful way. I felt they sort of staggered out of the room and then staggered back into the room. And I'm not really sure if people know what's left. I will take this moment if I can because I was trying to think when you said you wanted to talk about this, Doug. I came across another podcast from two guys. I happened to meet virtually this week and it's really interesting and they have a really good take on this. So the podcast is called Communication Breakdown. I think we might have a look at what it looks like. David, it was set up, I think they just had their one year anniversary by a guy.

(21:15):

Many of you may know Steve Dowling. He ran corporate comms at Apple and at Open AI for more than a decade, I think. And then a guy I've known for more than a decade, Craig Carroll, who teaches at Rice University. I knew him when he was at the University of Texas. And he runs the observatory on corporate reputation in New York, I think it's called. They've got a really good breakdown on this issue in particular. But I like this show and one of the reasons I like it is because it takes breaking well topical news from a practitioner's point of view. So Steve's been in the corporate comm seat for a long time. And then from an academic point of view, what's the framework? What's the theory? How can you look at this somewhat objectively? And that's what Craig brings to the conversation. And I went back and listened to a few episodes, and I think they do this with some discipline, but I think it's a really good addition to this ongoing conversation.

(22:08):

We're all trying to have what we started this show to do. And one of my pet interests is how do you introduce more academic rigor into the practice of communications and pr without getting too highfalutin about it. But I think sometimes I know I have just mouthed off not really knowing what the academic approach might've been, what sort of literature I could have looked at to inform recommendations or decisions I was making. So anyway, I just want to recommend them. I think we should get them on this show at some point. And I just like to encourage when I find things, I like to pass those along. So please give them a listen. I thought

Doug Downs (22:50):

They codified the Kimmel Disney story really well. I had a listen to that episode and yeah, I thought it was put well together. David and Michelle, what are the long-term impacts to reputations for Jimmy Kimmel and for Disney? I'll go first. I think for Disney it's benign. I don't think there's any, and sorry, I know price increases suck, Michelle, but I don't think Disney suffers out of this. I don't think Kimmel actually comes out well for this. I know he got the big boost to his monologue. I don't think they stay, but that's my 2 cents.

David Gallagher (23:24):

Oh, I don't want to talk over you, Michelle. You go first. But I'll disagree with you on part of that. I think.

Michelle Garrett (23:29):

No, I think Disney's already suffering because they've really gone, they've offended kind of both sides. Sides. If you want to really by having his show is on the air and he said things that offended one side and then they brought him back and that. So everybody's kind of upset. I mean, maybe long-term it blows over, but I mean, I don't know. I feel like, and for Kimmel, I think it's actually a good thing. I mean, I think everybody is making a point, or many people are talking about the late night shows are kind of dying out. And of course, yes, the ratings will bear that out. However, I do think even if Colbert is ending, so those folks are going to go on and have a following, have an audience on another platform. So

David Gallagher (24:18):

Yeah, I think I'm going to go with Michelle on this one. I might be even more neutral though. I think people have really short memories and I don't know that we'll be talking about this in two weeks time. Any part of it. I think Kimmel will find his footing, like I say, in a different format. And that'll be that I think Disney will continue doing what Disney does and its stock will move on different metrics for different reasons. But

Doug Downs (24:45):

Stock prices up slightly.

David Gallagher (24:46):

I'm just saying.

Doug Downs (24:47):

Oh,

David Gallagher (24:47):

There you have it. So I think the things that we think are so material in the moment end up having a short life. I do think there's some kind of more enduring things. And Doug, I just want to commend you and Farzana for your podcast this week. This is becoming like the podcast review show, but I thought your conversation with Amy. Amy, yeah, Amy Pate, sorry, on the polarization of conversation. And she was looking at obviously from an American perspective, but it's clearly an international global development. So anyway, I thought it was great, but you want to keep, we

Doug Downs (25:26):

Were looking into, well, I mean the Charlie Kirk assassination, I suppose was the launching pad to this. But there was another shooting couple of nights ago in Colorado murder suicide in Colorado. And again, it speaks to the polarization that's happening in a lot of countries. I don't mean to pick on the us. The US just seems to make the most headlines. And her perspective predictably was that words have tremendous meaning these days. There's an old saying about sticks and stones breaking bones, but these days words draw blood and we need to tone down the rhetoric, which we hear over and over and over again. But it has to be said again, we need to tone down the rhetoric. And an example of that was the president's response to the Kirk assassination immediately drawing, dividing lines amongst the populace and pointing to the so-called left. Don't need that. Don't need that. We need more conciliatory conversation. Michelle, just quickly, because we're tight on time here, your thoughts on that?

Michelle Garrett (26:33):

Oh, well, I mean, I think this week or the whole Kimmel, a, B, c, Disney situation has shown actually that people are engaged and are going to take action and good luck to the brands and companies that don't listen to the people. That's what my takeaway is. Got to

Doug Downs (26:53):

Listen.

David Gallagher (26:54):

Well, I think we're not going to have time to get into the thing I want. The last thing I wanted to mention, which is this Ipsos brand, American brand America study. Maybe we can get into that next week. And to be fair, I've only read the headlines, but the headlines are that outside of the US brands associated with America have suffered dramatically in the last 12 months with regard to how trustworthy they are and people's likelihood to purchase that. So that's where people who live outside the us for people who live inside the us, it's actually increased in most cases. So interesting

Doug Downs (27:26):

Illustration. Just say anything about brands that are perceived as, I hate left and right as terms, but does it say anything about, oh, this is a left-leaning brand I'll buy, or this is a right

David Gallagher (27:35):

Leaning. I didn't get into that and maybe there's a tab that says that, but the striking difference was that outside the US being affiliated with the American brand was not good, but it seemed to be okay inside the us and I'm sure you're seeing that maybe in travel and tourism. Yeah, but the whole other thing we should talk about at some point about promoting

Doug Downs (27:57):

So much to talk about, well, this whole thing about we were always told to wear our Canadian flags on our jackets or on our backpacks when traveling. And now this is spilling over into brands and a lot of Canadian brands are here in Canada are deliberately positioning themselves as Canadian, which Tim Horton's can't do. Tim Horton's is not Canadian. It puts a little maple leaf in its logo, but it can't, it's Brazilian.

David Gallagher (28:26):

Well, people ask me here to be polite if I'm Canadian knowing full well that I'm probably not Canadian, but that's a polite way of trying to figure out where I'm from. Well, I just want to say thank you, Michelle, for joining us. I will read your book and I have listened to your podcast and you're welcome back here any time.

Michelle Garrett (28:50):

Well, thank you so much for having me, and thank you for those kind words.

David Gallagher (28:54):

Doug, you want to take us out? You always have something.

Doug Downs (28:56):

Absolutely. I've got a real quick thought. I gave a presentation to Olympic athletes in Toronto this past week and not part of the presentation, but in conversation we started talking about momentum to move forward. And one of them noted in their sport, they can't move forward without moving back. And I think that's, think about in TaeKwonDo, a punch, a jab, got to move backward before you thrust forward. Throwing a ball, kicking a ball, you got to move back before you move forward. So the message is what is it you need to unlearn from your day to day to gain momentum, to move forward? What is the step backward that you need to take first before you move forward to think about that throughout the week? That is all time we have today. Hope you enjoyed it. Special thanks as always to Gold Star producers Emily Page and David Ade and our very first guest, Michelle Garrett. The week on Spun is a co-production of Zen Public Relations stories and strategies and Folated advisors. If you'd like to join the Advisory Club, mega Chats, get in touch with David Gallagher on LinkedIn. That is the best way, 24 7. He monitors it all the time. See you next week. Putting you on the spot. 3:00 AM you got to respond, 3:00 AM.

(30:18):

That's all the time we have. Have a great weekend.