Creating Confident Storytellers at Yoplait

We helped Yoplait’s teams build the storytelling, presence and confidence to deliver a compelling new narrative on children’s nutrition.

Yoplait is one of the world’s largest players in fresh dairy products. The UK branch of the business was inspired to refocus its efforts on messaging with the launch of a newly shaped mission focusing on the health benefits of dairy products for children. 

• 1250 employees
• 50 markets worldwide

“We want to improve the health of children through our products, and really change the narrative around dairy and yoghurts.” - Ewa Moxham, Marketing Director at Yoplait   

The Challenge 

The rollout of a new mission to be The Positive Voice of Nutrition for kids, provided Yoplait with the perfect opportunity to rethink how its team members approach messaging.

The industry and markets Yoplait operates in have historically branded dairy products as unhealthy, so the team knew the success of this new vision would depend on the messaging skills of the sales and marketing teams. They would have to be convincing and influential when communicating this new, against-the-grain message to customers and stakeholders. 

But the teams had faced some post-covid challenges that were still affecting them: 

1. Adapting to a new, hybrid way of working both online and in-person
2. Working with internationally-based colleagues in France 

So successfully conveying Yoplait’s new mission would not only require a new approach in the teams’ storytelling, but a solution to these obstacles that could hold them back. 

“The challenge for us was how do we convey that message effectively, not just with customers but with all our stakeholders across the industry?” - Ewa Moxham, Marketing Director at Yoplait    

The Solution

To ensure the teams could communicate this new narrative as effectively as possible, Yoplait partnered with DoThinkDo.

We developed a fully bespoke training course for sales and marketing, focusing on three core goals: 

1. Higher personal impact and influence
2. The ability to use storytelling as a tool
3. Greater personal presence 

Achieving these separate goals would help Yoplait in its overarching vision: to improve the sales and marketing teams’ presence in stakeholder, customer and internal meetings.

And as always with DoThinkDo, it was a hands-on experience that swapped ‘dazed by PowerPoint’ for a low-stakes, creative environment where they could engage with practical tasks, stretching the team outside of their comfort zones to personally connect with the course aims. 

“Their programme was adapted to our request and the delivery was very much focused on the people along with the right amount of theory.” - Lena Bernard HR Business Associate 

The Results

After completing DoThinkDo’s learning programme, Yoplait’s sales and marketing teams have felt empowered to communicate the new story confidently, in any context. Immediately following the course, attendees gave an average feedback score of 9.5/10. 

In a survey conducted three months after the course:

• 100% reported an increase in their confidence to give presentations
• 25% said this confidence had improved by 100%
• 100% reported an increase in their storytelling confidence

“The impact will grow further as we are rolling out the workshop to everyone. We really want the business to grow as one on this specific skill set.” - Lena Bernard, HR Business Associate

The Verdict

“Pushing people out of their comfort zone, having the feedback loop, working in small groups - it was invaluable. Everyone came away realising they can deliver the same message in many different ways. It was the most innovative way we’ve seen to have a different impact with people we’re interacting with.”