Listo decided to target fathers in its advertising campaigns to include men in childcare decision making and diversifying its customer basis away from mothers only.
Listo is a social enterprise that fights children malnutrition in Guatemala. It produces and distributes nutritious and appropriate baby food at an affordable price for low-income populations. Educational campaigns promoting healthy diets at home complete the offering.
Lilli, Listo’s founder and CEO, took our gender mainstreaming course and in the process, she realized that Listo’s communication strategy was not the most effective way to reach the venture’s goal. Indeed, Listo’s communication was solely targeting mothers. By advocating child health as a women’s duty, Listo was contributing to reinforcing the stereotype that the children’s healthcare is the responsibility of women. It was also alienating the fathers, who controlled the much needed resources to buy its products.
Lilli realized that, in order to increase Listo’s impact and profitability, the company needed to focus on changing the traditional narrative and include fathers in childcare-related decision making. To do so, she planned to:
- adapt Listo’s campaigns to make them more inclusive and appealing to fathers,
- focus on the narrative of loving families taking care of their children, instead of exclusively portraying loving mothers
- learn about the fathers’ perspectives on raising and taking care of their children and promoting their aspirations in Listo’s communication.
While it is still too early to tell the social and business impact of Listo’s initiative, Lilli has ambitious plans. She aims to increase by 50% the fathers’ likeliness to buy Listo’s products, and encourage fathers to physically feed their children, an activity that in traditional Guatemalan families is usually undertaken by mothers.
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