How Nestle Chile Reached Female Consumers

Nestle has a fairly decentralized management culture. So rolling out a program to gender balance the corporation's management globally across over 100 countries was always going to be more about followership and role modeling success than it would be about a centralized imposition of the scorecard-based approach typical of many companies.

As I described in a previous post, I helped CEO Paul Bulcke and fellow members of Nestle's Executive Board to led the way by running workshops (we called them "Awareness Sessions") with their own teams first, highlighting the business case for achieving a more equitable balance of gender in the company's management teams. The members of these teams in turn let leaders around the world know that the Awareness Sessions were being made available to those who wanted to structure the debate in their own divisions and geographies.

This voluntary adoption principle helped get the right people leading the way — those who saw its potential, were enthusiastic proponents of change, and could be good role models for their peers on WHY and HOW to embrace the gender balancing concept. If the gender issue is well positioned from the start, as a strategic, customer and talent-driven business imperative, it inevitably attracts the most adaptable and open-minded managers, who use the concept as a way to generate fresh thinking about the company's opportunities.

Take the case of Nestle's unit in Chile. Latin America is often caricatured as a macho bastion, stuck in outdated gender stereotypes. The reality is that Latin American society is changing at lightning speed, and that Latin America has boasted more than its fair share of female political leaders, starting with Michele Bachelet, the very popular former President of Chile. The macroeconomic data is also breathtaking. In Brazil, now also led by a female President (Dilma Roussef), the percentage of women in the labor force has leapt by 15 percentage points just in the past decade. This is a social revolution that is not much publicized, but its impacts are profound. Women and men have, perhaps more suddenly than elsewhere, been catapulted into redefining gender roles.

Nestle Chile decided to use the gender balance initiative to test its ability to ride the wave. It focused on a product, Svelty, which was a low-fat milk range primarily aimed at women. The product had been under-performing and was in need of attention. "It was a bit of macho brand that focused on models and slimness," remembers Fernando del Solar, Chile's Market Head. "We wanted to shift it to focus on building trust with our consumers, and clearly differentiating the benefits of the brand."

Del Solar reversed the typical gender balance on the team asked to take on the project. The 90% female dominated team decided to take an approach that was very new in Chile. The traditional approach to a lot of advertising and selling is steeped in 'performance' language, note marketers Jane Cunningham and Philippa Roberts. For example, 'buy this product and you will be... bigger, faster, thinner, better, etc.' The vast majority of creative ad directors are still men, and this language and positioning naturally speaks to many of the men taking key spending decisions in companies and campaigns.

The new team wanted an entirely different feel. They imagined a campaign that met Chilean women where they were, in newly found roles of work and leadership and parenting and power. To sound like a trusted friend rather than a respected expert. To move from doing to being, from a product that helps you lose weight, to a brand that helps you "listen to what your life wants". It focused on women of all ages, including the rarely portrayed woman over 40, with the tag line that 'the best age is the age you have now'.

They had to fight for their concept. Initially, the ad agency team, filled with men, just didn't understand or buy the concept. But the team dug in their heels, and insisted that the ad agency put more women on the case.

The result: an award winning ad campaign that redefined the brand, a huge uptick in sales, and a campaign that repositioned Nestle in Chile as a social innovator in tune with modern women. As del Solar commented: "In Chile, Nestle is, and by far, the No. 1 company in the sector. This is the kind of subject on which we must lead. Chilean companies are not fully aware of the value of women, but they are tracking how we move. And they will move too. But we will have to fight for the best talent, and we are a women-driven company, so we want to stay ahead and attract and develop the best. This helps."

"The best surprise," del Solar concludes, "is that there is no surprise. With men, you have to manage wannabe superstars. With women, you get commitment and responsibility. If you let them fly, it's a virtuous cycle."