Marketing digital de substitutos do leite materno no Brasil: como as principais marcas estão presentes no instagram?

Abstract

Introduction: The marketing of “breast milk substitutes” (BMS), such as infant formulas and dairy compounds, has contributed to early weaning. SLM companies have appropriated social media for direct marketing to users, with more personalized and sophisticated tools than those commonly used in traditional media. In addition, the content generated by social media users through the tags of SLM companies acts as a way to increase the advertising reach of these products. Objective: To analyze the presence of SLM brands on Instagram in Brazil, from the perspective of the official pages of the companies and the content generated by users. Methods: The sample of studied SLM brands was selected from the portfolio of the four SLM companies with the greatest presence in the Brazilian market. We identified 16 brands covering 30 products of interest: seven infant formulas, seven infant follow-up formulas, seven infant follow-up formulas and 9 dairy compounds. Of these 16 brands, eight (50%) had official pages on Instagram: @aptanutribrasil, @milnutribrasil, @nestlenanlac, @nestlenaninho, @nestlenestonutri, @nestleneslac, @enfanutribr and @enfagrowbr. These pages include content on 16 products, seven of which are follow-up infant formulas for infants and nine dairy compounds. For each one, between November 2021 and January 2022, the variables were collected: page name, page link, number of publications, number of followers, number of tags, presence of a link that directs to the purchase of products, and date of first posting. Then, posts from official pages were selected, collecting the link, post date, caption, number of likes, number of comments, and number of views. Finally, the profiles of users who marked the pages of SLM brands in their posts were described, characterized by user name, profile link, number of publications, number of followers, profile description, and type of page. These users' posts were also characterized according to the variables: link, post date, caption, number of likes, number of comments, and number of views. Results: 529 posts were identified on the pages of the eight SLM brands, totaling 184,605 followers. The page @aptanutribrasil had the highest number of posts (n = 232). As for the number of followers, the @nestleninho page stood out, with 131,198. Six SLM pages (75%) had links in their description that directed the user to external sites that made it possible to purchase the products. The posts on the @nestleninho page were the ones with the highest number of interactions (15,939 likes and 3,386 comments). Of the eight pages studied, 1,656 tags were selected, made by 1,175 users, which referred to the SLM brands of interest in the study. These marks were made mainly by profiles characterized as 'personal account' (67.9%) and 'commercial account' (24.5%). The tags with the highest average number of likes were from accounts classified as 'informative' (1,558.2), 'health professional' (1,481.9) and 'personal account' (1,288.9), and views, 'personal accounts' ', with an average of 27,777.4. Conclusion: Instagram has been used by SLM brands to expand the marketing of their products and have direct contact with consumers. Users of this social media are also responsible for disseminating content about these products, increasing the reach of information about SLM in this environment.