Nestlé Alimentana S.A. - Infant Formula Essay

Words: 1642
Pages: 7

Situation Analysis

The case is based in the late 70’s of the past century, when after the baby boom and the appearance of third world countries (Less Developed Countries – LDC’s) mothers in general were unable to feed their children with all the needed nutrients that a normal child must have, this is basically why the infant formula was created.

The infant formula was created by companies in the pharmaceutical industry and Nestlé. Nestlé easily got a high market share in the industry. The general health problems in the aftermath cause a great impact on babies. The number of sick babies increased all the time after the Second World War, because there weren’t the needed minimum required measures of neatness for babies, like
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By the end of 1978 Nestlé’s problem was basically a marketing problem and a social responsibility one with the people. A company must make their customers happy and comfortable with their products, and Nestlé’s marketing campaign wasn’t accepted by the market. Also the product it’s a really delicate issue to talk about, because none can get into a mother’s life saying that the formulas are going to help a children’s development without any scientific prove and pre-test, but no mother wants to use her own child as a test field, this is why it’s really important to know how to make de advertising and marketing strategy for this kind of products.

The product made and ethical problem, when the understanding among the people was that formulas were better than breast milk, which was not the point that Nestlé wanted to achieve. Formulas were created as a help for mother who were unable to breastfeed or when the baby needed more nutrients because of the lack of a healthy environment in an LDC.

Problems or Gaps

One of the principal gaps was the information. Associations like INFACT were misunderstanding must of the information and making it more difficult for the company to explain the original goals of the formula. Mothers took the marketing information daring their roles as the ones in charge of the survival of babies, while in the other hand Nestlé’s objective was to help the