‘Lady Doritos’ dust-up is about more than taste
PepsiCo’s Indra Nooyi, firm’s female CEO, is no stranger to waging battles
This is just a guess, but with PepsiCo’s U.S. launch this week of a sparkling water called bubly, with fruit flavour names — cherrybubly, lemonbubly — the marketing team at the food and beverage giant likely has in mind a consumer profile that skews young and female.
The zero-calorie fizzy drink, with no artificial flavours or sweeteners, comes in colour-coded cans imprinted with “personal messages” meant to elicit “maximum enjoyment and smiles.” An example: “love at first phssst.”
I suppose the introduction of the new drink could trigger complaints from consumers objecting to seemingly sexist beverages in the same way that comments from PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi about Doritos consumption lit a firestorm over so-called Lady Doritos.
For those who missed it, in a podcast interview with Freakonomics author Stephen Dubner that addressed such issues as the corporate struggles facing women at the top, Nooyi was asked about gender differences in chip eating.
The chief executive noted that women don’t pour those little broken end bits and those dusty flavour particles into their mouths from a single-serving bag the way men do. “And they don’t lick their fingers generously,” Nooyi said, adding that PepsiCo will soon be launching snacks designed and packaged differently, snacks that retain the “full taste profile” without having so much of that residue stick to the fingers.
Social media did its usual socialmedia thing. The excitable Twitterverse hewed to its standard behaviour. One observer noted she was shocked to learn the CEO of PepsiCo is a woman. I mean, how can a woman have such retrograde thoughts? This is not helpful. Consider instead the way Nooyi, who became CEO in October 2006, has reshaped PepsiCo against fierce opposition from activist investor Nelson Peltz, who spent two years waving his near $2-billion (U.S.) investment in the fun-food giant in a threatening manner, insisting that the company be chopped in two.
In the Peltz scenario, snack foods would be spun off from beverages, a strategy against which Nooyi was fiercely opposed.
Consider the attributes that Nooyi brought to the post. A woman. A woman born and bred in India. A woman who bore no assumed status and privilege in the often ruthless corridors of corporate America.
Consider the task at hand: sales of carbonated soft drinks have been on the decline on a consumption and volume sales basis for more than a decade. Consumer tastes continue to veer toward healthier beverages, including water, yet snack sales continue to grow. Last summer, market research firm Mintel explored snacking behaviours and preferences (more than one-quarter of consumers agree that taste is more important than health when choosing a snack) and numbers (sales of salty snacks in the U.S. grew 30 per cent in five years to roughly $11.2 billion in 2016).
Consumers are health conscious. But they like their less-healthy treats too. It’s the balance between healthy eating and indulgence. (The “salty snack” category includes pork rinds.) And as snacking grows (millennials are the most likely to snack four or more times a day) portability and packaging become key.
Now set this against the broad redefinition that Nooyi has brought to PepsiCo, a “performance with purpose” company that extols longterm results and environmental sustainability. Acquisitions under Nooyi include the Naked Juice and the KeVita probiotic beverage line.
In one of the many forums in which Nooyi has participated, she recalled the reaction of one Bostonbased investor who, as she said, took her to the cleaners for her strategy. “Who are you, Mother Teresa? We are Americans. We eat chips and we drink soda. It’s not your business to transform the company to healthy offerings.”
And there have been painful bumps, including a lawsuit over the stated health benefits of Naked Juice. In response, the company made a number of labelling changes, including listing juice ingredients in descending order.
The big picture: PepsiCo has 22 brands that each generate more than $1 billion in sales annually. Nooyi has spoken many times about the difficulties in being a mother to two daughters as she has steered the colossus. “You die with guilt,” she has said about the challenges of being a good mother on four hours of sleep. She champions increased wages for child-care workers and on-site daycare.
What do women want? There’s the big picture: equal chances in the workplace. And the daily needs: a small flex pack snack.
I note the 100-calorie single-serve packs of SkinnyPop popcorn — no additives, non GMO. Simple ingredients. And clearly a product very much marketed to women.
Two weeks ago, Hershey Co. completed the purchase of SkinnyPop’s parent for $1.6 billion, an acquisition that brought with it Tyrrell’s hand-baked potato chips, the crisps with “no iffy ingredients.” No doubt Nooyi took note. In PepsiCo’s last annual report, the company trumpeted its conquest of frying a potato chip with 20 per cent less fat.
I tell you all this to bring nuance to the Doritos imbroglio. Here is something else I learned: The orange powder from Cheetos is called “cheetle.” I don’t know the name for the Doritos equivalent, other than the obvious: Doritos Dust. jenwells@thestar.ca