PepsiCo is the latest company to face an outpouring of online outrage.
In an interview with Indra Nooyi, the CEO of PepsiCo (NASDAQ: PEP), claimed that women and men have different experiences consuming Doritos. Unlike men, Nooyi said, many women consider the loud crunch to be a drawback of eating Doritos in public. Women also prefer not having to lick their fingers too much in public. Society's standards of behavior also render many women hesitant to pour the crumbs straight from the bag into their mouths.
In response to Nooyi's remarks, the interviewer asked if the PepsiCo-owned Frito-Lay plans to distribute a male and female version of its Doritos product. Nooyi did not give details in her response, but seemed open to the idea, stating that the company could see the benefits of packaging and designing a tweaked Doritos product for women. The criteria for this hypothetical new version of Doritos included lower crunch, a "full taste profile" that nonetheless would involve less powder sticking onto fingers, and purse-friendly packaging.
The interviewer's soundbite of Nooyi's words quickly caught on in the social media realm, where Nooyi was roundly mocked and critiqued. Many internet commenters found Nooyi's stance to be inflammatory and sexist, particularly as it relied on generalizations of certain female consumers' eating habits. The discussion quickly snowballed and took the concept of "Lady Doritos" out of its original context. The reaction to "Lady Doritos" went viral, and the ensuing flurry of indignation was decidedly bad PR for PepsiCo. Digimind, a firm that tracks consumer sentiment by reviewing social media mentions, happened to already be gauging consumer feelings about Doritos in advance of the Super Bowl when the "Lady Doritos" news broke. The firm found that negative opinions about the snack soared 138%. Still, if you take the notion that any PR is good PR, it might not be such a disaster after all.
In response, PepsiCo's PR team issued a brief statement to clear up the confusion. It maintained that the recent news proclaiming the release of a woman-specific Doritos product was inaccurate. It then hedged its claims about the actual product that will be released in the unspecified future, citing its belief that evolving consumer needs and preferences must still be catered to.
PepsiCo's "Lady Doritos" scandal has a parallel in Bic's (EPA: BB) "Bic Pens for Her" PR disaster. Marketing experts have offered the insight that gendered products can fail with the masses when the perceived rationale behind why a company is splitting their offerings into two categories is trivializing or demeaning. One successful example of a gendered split is Gilette's razors, made by Procter & Gamble Co. (NYSE: PG), which cater separately to men and women, addressing a fundamental difference in the way women shave their legs and how men shave their faces.
PepsiCo is just one more company to face the wrath of the internet of late: H&M (STO: HM-B) also had a PR fiasco over a seemingly racist ad.