In 2012, PepsiCo hired its first chief design officer and CEO Indra Nooyi said in an
interview that “now ‘design’ has a voice in nearly every important decision that the company makes.”
How did the corporate giant use design thinking as part of a strategy to turn around its declining market position and drive growth? According to Nooyi, it marked a shift in the company focus, from product design to consumer experience design. They started to pay attention to how consumers interacted with the brand and to the overall user experience, a phrase Nooyi said “wasn’t part of our lexicon.”
Now, design and the user experience are an integral part of PepsiCo’s strategy, and it’s all attributed to design thinking. Take the company’s new approach to marketing its products to women. In days gone by, Nooyi is sure the company would have adopted the “shrink it or pink it” approach to female-centered product design and marketing. “We’d put Doritos, say, in a pink Susan G. Komen bag and say it’s for women. That’s fine, but there’s more to how women like to snack.”
Nooyi goes on to describe how women like to snack — “they worry about how much the product may stain—they won’t rub it on a chair, which a lot of guys do.” Nooyi’s comments demonstrate an insight-based decision making process based on empathetic thinking.
And the thinking has transferred into action. To improve the female user experience with its products, PepsiCo released a new line of Doritos in China that come stacked in a tray and packaged in a cannister, rather than in a snack bag. Now, Nooyi says, “when a woman wants to snack, she can open her drawer and eat from the tray. When she’s done, she can push it back in. The chip is also less noisy to eat: Women don’t want people to hear them crunching away.”
PepsiCo’s new approach was
summed up by the company’s Chief Design Officer, Mauro Porcini: