Product recalls challenge manufacturers and can reshape the competitive and regulatory landscape. This new feature looks at how brands manage crises.

Brand: Tylenol

Recall issued: October 5, 1982

Scope: 31 million bottles of Tylenol products

Lethal dose: Mary Kellerman, 12, who lived in a Chicago suburb, awoke on the morning of September 29, 1982, with a sore throat and runny nose, so her parents told her to take a Tylenol. Her father, Dennis Kellerman, heard her go into the bathroom, and then he heard something drop.

“So I opened the bathroom door, and my little girl was on the floor unconscious,” he told the Chicago Tribune. “She was still in her pajamas.” Mary died that morning.

It turned out that the Tylenol had been laced with cyanide. In the next few days, six more people in the Chicago area would die from using the product.

As the FBI, the US Attorney’s office, and Chicago-area police investigated leads, executives at Johnson & Johnson, which made Tylenol under its McNeil division, scrambled to respond. At the time, Tylenol commanded a 37% share of the analgesic market.

“A flat prediction I’ll make is that you will not see the name Tylenol in any form within a year,” Jerry Della Femina, then-chairman of ad agency Della Femina Travisano Partners, told the New York Times at the time. “There may be an advertising person who thinks he can solve this, and if they find him, I want to hire him, because then I want him to turn our water cooler into a wine cooler.”

Prognostications aside, the crisis was just beginning. Before it was over, tamper-resistant packaging, a foreign concept at the time, would be required by the FDC for most OTC products. And a new standard for crisis communications would be set.

Keep reading here.—AAN

Ask anyone and they’ll tell you that data is king. It’s why Wayfair and Rite Aid are now enlisting Google Cloud technology that will help them streamline their backend operations.

What does that mean? For Wayfair, the company finished migrating 100% of its cloud applications to Google Cloud this year, which now allows the company to scale and ensure a smooth customer transition during peak shopping periods, like the holidays.

• The company can now reduce the time it takes to create and deploy fraud and scam-detection machine learning models.
• Wayfair’s new customer-identification model will also help it identify professional customers to increase B2B orders.
• And the machine learning models will aid in creating a more personalized customer interaction that Google says will increase traffic and conversions.

For Rite Aid, the company is still in the process of migrating to Google Cloud, in a step toward the vision of becoming a modern pharmacy. For starters, the partnership will allow Rite Aid to migrate key applications like its vaccine-scheduling tool and messaging application to Google Cloud’s Anthos platform.

• The cloud-computing tech will be on-site at roughly 2,350 pharmacies, which will help operations during natural disasters without needing to be connected to on-premise technology.
• Plus, Rite Aid has chosen Google Cloud’s retail search solution, which gives customers more precise search results when using the company’s e-comm website or mobile app.

Keep reading here.—KM

“Dunkin’ fans are in revolt over the company’s revamp of its award system last week, which makes getting free coffee more expensive.

Once-loyal customers have been decrying the policy change on the Dunkin’ subreddit, pledging to uninstall the app and defect to Starbucks,” writes Neal Freyman for Morning Brew:

What did Dunkin’ do to set off the revolution? For one, it upped the amount you had to spend at the store to get free drinks.

Dunkin’ also stripped away the unalienable rights of Americans to cop freebies on their birthdays by eliminating free b-day drinks.

Dunkin’ defended the update, claiming that drinks have gotten more expensive to make and the changes would be beneficial for its franchisees.

Read the full story here.—NF

Today’s top retail reads.

Smells like you: Exclusivity is out, and personality is in, as younger consumers seek fragrances that are affordable and allow for self-expression. (Thingtesting)

Breaking it down: Clothing that could be disassembled and worn in different ways again was all the rage at Paris Fashion Week as sustainability remained a key theme. But whether it can alter the way consumers shop remains to be seen. (Vogue Business)

Back to square one: As inventory piles up at Nike, the retailer may need to rethink its downsized relationship with Foot Locker. (Retail Dive)

Sneak peek: US production is making a comeback, so we went to New Balance’s Massachusetts factory to see how the company gets it done. Check it out in our new video, sponsored by AT&T Business.*

^{*This is sponsored advertising content.}

Happy Friday! We have an exciting announcement about The SKU: A Retail Brew Summit, coming to NYC in less than two weeks.

To thank you for being part of our Retail Brew community, we’re doing a Friday flash sale for 50% off tickets! Just use code FridayFlashSale at checkout and you’ll be on your way to The SKU for half off.

We’ve got a knockout roster of speakers from top retail brands like JCPenney, Sam’s Club, and many more. If you’re a retail leader, you won’t want to miss out on the most action-packed retail event of the year (especially for 50% off). Get ’em now while supplies tickets last!

Three of the stories below are real...and one is most definitely not. Can you spot the fake?

1. An American brewing company has introduced a turkey beer flavor…for dogs.
2. A California woman ate 72 White Castle burgers in under 15 minutes to win a lifetime supply of White Castle food.
3. A disgruntled hot-sauce aficionado has sued Texas Pete hot sauce after finding out the product isn’t made in Texas.
4. An Indiana man literally married a can of Hard Mtn Dew in a ceremony in Las Vegas.

Keep reading for the answer.

Catch up on the Retail Brew stories you may have missed.

• How the strengthening dollar is impacting fashion retailers
• Outdoor recreation boomed during the pandemic, but could be plateauing
• Delivery execs from Kroger, Walmart, and Shein tell us their main priorities