At Nestlé, the energy of feminine entrepreneurship carries 40% of gross sales

Under the brand name Moça, of condensed milk, the company wants to direct marketing and communication efforts to the female audience, responsible for 40% of sales

Upon completing 100 years in Brazil, the Nestlé made some strategic decisions with the aim of modernizing communication with its target audience. But with an extensive portfolio and national reach, it was to be expected that this idea would be of some complexity.

The way was to aim for a specific brand that was capable of translating the multinational’s desire to understand the needs of those who purchase products at the cutting edge. The one chosen to lead these efforts was the brand of condensed milk Girl.

women entrepreneurs

Some years of research have drawn attention to the relevance of the female audience in the Moça addressable market. Three years ago, these surveys became formal actions dedicated to talking to women entrepreneurs, responsible for something like 40% of total brand sales. They are, according to Nestlé, chefs, bakers and confectioners who use Moça’s product in their recipes.

“Today, thanks to these surveys, we understand much more about the habits and pains of this public”, says Natália Goivinho, consumer marketing manager for the Moça brand at Nestlé. The rationale was to better understand this audience. After all, with an extensive range of data in hand, Nestlé could think of actions that are much more friendly to entrepreneurs, from the pricing of products to the distribution paths that take the items to the shelves.

Attention to female entrepreneurship is a turning point that, according to Goivinho, started for no apparent reason at the company. “It was a matter of understanding the importance of these women for the brand, and that was enough for us to understand that it was time to create strategies to reach them as we had never done before, in a hundred years”.

However, the watchful eye on small entrepreneurs was also related to the growth of female entrepreneurship during the pandemic.
With the stark unemployment rates, the rise of entrepreneurs who started to bet on their own business as an alternative income became a great opportunity for the brand to design new strategies to communicate with these women.

“We know that the food sector attracts women entrepreneurs in Brazil. Candy-based entrepreneurship moves thousands of women who see cakes and candies as a chance to be independent,” she says.

The first action on this journey was the exchange of packaging for the condensed milk itself. For the first time in 100 years, the brand replaced the famous peasant woman who stamps the cans and boxes. Instead, they were inserted illustrations of real entrepreneurs and consumers of the brandwho also had their stories told on Moça’s social networks.

The labels were part of the celebration of the brand’s 100th anniversary in Brazil, and gave rise to 7 million cans, distributed throughout Brazil between June and October 2021. “It was an event with incredible results. In addition to this brand awareness that supports female entrepreneurship, we gained visibility and engagement, at an even higher rate than other projects”, says Goivinho.

And now?

Apparently, strengthening ties with women entrepreneurs will be the brand’s great ambition from now on. For this, the bet is on education. Support groups for female entrepreneurship via WhatsApp, created in partnership with Consul through the Consulado da Mulher initiative, provide advice and access to materials on management and financial education for about 400 women in each class.

The initiative, which was born in 2021, should be extended into the future — a group is currently underway, made up of women from the North and Northeast regions.

For the future, the objective is to find commercial partners to sign new agreements for this and other entrepreneurial training projects.

On the other hand, the brand also intends to facilitate the access of these small businesswomen to the products. An example is in giving micro-entrepreneurs access to Nestlé’s digital shopping platform, which is now exclusively dedicated to small retailers.

“If we manage to increase this percentage of female entrepreneurs’ participation in our sales in the coming years, it would be wonderful, but also a natural consequence of everything we already do”, he says. “Supporting these women is our main agenda for the brand plan for the coming year”.

Source: Exam