PepsiCo is using the #SeeHer Gender Equality Measure as both a qualitative and quantitative tool to more accurately portray girls and women and help validate some of its budget and media decisions. “We’ve been using it much, much more the last two years across our organization and across a wide variety of brands,” says Global VP Ciara Dilley.
“Because we do believe that the need to depict women positively is not just incumbent on our female focused brands, but it’s important that all of our brands show up in the right way.”
Launched by the Association of National Advertisers in 2016, #SeeHer and GEM have prompted “a heightened level of awareness and much more sincere conversations around the quality of our communications,” Dilley explains in this interview with Beet.TV.
Dilley, who is responsible for PepsiCo’s Better For You & Premium Brands, says that shoppers are basing their brand decisions in part on strong diversity messages and positive depictions of females. Moreover, diversity pays dividends.
“Those businesses that are invested in diversity perform better, and the statistics show that now,” she says. “I think also we know that the GEM score drives better business results, so that’s incredibly important, particularly when you’re speaking to the finance director.”
Dilley has found that GEM helps PepsiCo have wider communications about the depiction of females in its communications. It can also act as a prompt to “get the right message across” and avoid making mistakes.
In addition, #SeeHer has fostered more constructive collaborations with the company’s agency partners. “In the last few months, I’ve been personally involved with a number of my brands and as we’ve developed new creative starting off with the conversation that #SeeHer has enabled us to have and putting that front and foremost as a critical factor of success within creative development,” Dilley says.
You are watching Gender Equality Means Business, a Beet.TV series presented by Meredith Corporation in partnership with #SeeHer. For additional videos from the series, please visit this page.
