PepsiCo faces backlash after ‘Lady Doritos’ trends
The company’s chief said her team would be launching ‘snacks for women,’ asserting that men and women eat the flavored chips differently. Those remarks quickly drew scorn and derision.
It was the crunch heard ’round the marketing world.
In a “Freakonomics Radio” interview, journalist Stephen Dubner asked PepsiCo’s chief executive, Indra Nooyi, about the differences between chip-eating habits for men and women:
DUBNER: I understand that men and women eat chips very differently. Can you tell us the differences?
NOOYI: When you eat out of a flex bag — one of our single-serve bags — especially as you watch a lot of the young guys eat the chips, they love their Doritos, and they lick their fingers with great glee, and when they reach the bottom of the bag they pour the little broken pieces into their mouth, because they don’t want to lose that taste of the flavor, and the broken chips in the bottom. Women would love to do the same, but they don’t. They don’t like to crunch too loudly in public. And they don’t lick their fingers generously and they don’t like to pour the little broken pieces and the flavor into their mouth.
Nooyi then confirmed that the company was “getting ready to launch” snack products made specifically for women:
DUBNER: So is there a male and female version of chips that you’re playing with, or no?
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