• Wall Street Journal, Thursday, July 9, 2009 10:34 AM

Marketing specialists generally applaud Johnson & Johnson's quick reaction to a Food and Drug Administration advisory panel's recommendation that sweeping limits be placed on acetaminophen, the generic name of its Tylenol brand. But they warn that it has a tough road ahead in asserting that its pills are safe if taken in the recommended dosage without overstating its case, Vanessa O'Connell and Shirley S. Wang report.

Just three days after the panel's report was released, J&J ran carefully worded ads in major newspapers that conveyed the idea that neither Tylenol itself, nor its marketing, were to blame for any overdosing problems. The campaign recalled J&J's swift action to reassure consumers in 1982 after some Extra Strength Tylenol was laced with cyanide by an unknown perpetrator -- a case widely considered a landmark in corporate crisis management.

But continuing to raise the safety issue could backfire, according to Stephen Greyser, a marketing professor at Harvard Business School, by keeping the issue in the news. And playing down the panel's concerns could bring J&J attention from the Federal Trade Commission, which requires ads to be truthful, not misleading, and substantiated.

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