In Resilient5, I used Robinhood’s Game Stop fiasco as a case study of what happens when a brand doesn’t proactively build resilience with a strong stakeholder ecosystem. Their key stakeholders didn’t understand that while the app appeared to disrupt the market, it was still subject to the same boring and complicated rules that everyone else is.

(Digression. Robinhood went public this week in an underwhelming fashion.)

One of the points in Resilient5 is that you should use a content program to build trust and understanding with your stakeholders all the time so that when trouble comes, you sway in the wind instead of toppling over.

This brings me to a case study of how this was done right by Johnson & Johnson.

No surprise, this story revolves around the COVID vaccine. As we all know, Johnson & Johnson developed a single-shot vaccine and experienced some controversy—more on that later.

What I think people may not know is that they did the proactive work I recommend in Resilient5. They understood that while most of us have relied on vaccines to protect us for our entire life, we have little understanding of how they are developed, tested, etc. That mystery—and a lack of basic science knowledge and a lack of trust—have been at the heart of our vaccine issues.

Johnson & Johnson attacked this problem with a series of videos called “Road to a Vaccine.” They hired a journalist to do the interviews (an old PR trick) and produced a series of 8 episodes that covered the difficult topics—from how a vaccine is developed to how it could be developed so quickly to why minorities were being hit harder by COVID than other groups.

I think they did a number of things well with this.

Keyword: Demystifying

Here’s a quote from Johnson & Johnson communications honcho Seema Kumar.

“People are interested in science. We just need to make it relevant and understandable and relatable,” she said. "I think we need to take science from being available to a privileged few who speak that language to making it accessible for all.”

Elsewhere, she talks about “demystifying” the process.

This is not our normal instinct. Normally, someone will stroke their chin in the meeting and warn us not to get “into the weeds.” You might also hear an old-saw about sausage production.

And maybe I don’t always care about how stuff works. When you are injecting something into my body, I probably do. Also, I bet Robinhood wishes they had gotten a little more in the weeds than they did.

Last note here. If there’s a better mantra than “relevant and understandable and relatable” I‘d like to hear it.

Body Language

The actual information is important. What is just as important is what I call the “body language.:”

If you have nothing to hide, act like it. If you love science, act like it. If you want trust, act like it.

People can sense this.

Well distributed

The series was well distributed. They used Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and their own website. This is important. It helps with the body language, it broadens reach and ensures a more diverse audience. It can reach “close in” stakeholders like employees, shareholders, health officials, decision makers and also informed public. It also cannot be accused of being hidden or obscured.

In fact, the LinkedIn execution resulted in an interesting case study and shows a commitment to reaching key audiences at all levels, even in the business community.

Not just executives

Lastly, they included non-executives in this series. While we all have heard that people want to "hear from the CEO” over the last year, I think we might have over-learned that. Yes, on important things deal with vision and governance, people do want to hear from the CEO. But on things like this, our audiences LOVE to hear from the people on the front lines—the researchers, the technicians, and the scientists.

When we give a voice to the people doing the work, we transmit their enthusiasm. Their expertise. We humanize our effort and we make it (sorry) authentic.

Results

Look, I know that the vaccine uptake effort is very divisive and efforts like those at Johnson and Johnson have failed to convince significant swaths of the population.

That' wasn’t Johnson & Johnson’s alone to fix.

I don’t have any of the company’s research to rely on (obviously) but here is some evidence that they had success.

They drew eyeballs—100 million of them. I know that isn’t a true outcome, but in a world where we compete for attention, it has to matter. And we can’t persuade them if we don’t get their attention.

The company experienced some earthquakes over the last year, dealing with manufacuting quality and side effects. Resilient5 is supposed to prepare you for the crisis communications you can’t predict. How did Johnson & Johnson do with their initiatives (which included more than just this video series).

First, despite the hit they took, their stock is at a 12-month high as of yesterday.

Second, on YouGov America research, their overall favorability has taken a hit, falling 12-points this year. But it didn’t collapse and they are only 3 points behind Pfizer and ahead of Moderna.