Brooklyn native Michael John Hebranko, Jr. was one of the heaviest men in the world. He made it into the Guinness Book of World Records in 1990 for losing 706 pounds! Hebranko achieved this seemingly impossible feat over 19 months with a combination of surgical fat removal plus diet and exercise coaching from 1990s exercise phenom Richard Simmons. It made Hebranko a celebrity, and he appeared on both The Howard Stern Show and The Oprah Winfrey Show.
Despite Hebranko’s achievement, the issue of fat in America remains. And the stats are pretty grim. The Food Research and Action Center states that obesity rates in the U.S. have doubled since 1970, and nearly 40 percent of Americans today are obese. Obesity is serious business. The World Health Organization reported in a 2019 study that around the globe, obesity was responsible for 5 million noncommunicable disease deaths.
Obesity is also the business of another worldwide organization: Weight Watchers International. Since 1963, Weight Watchers has been helping people shed those extra pounds and maintain a healthy body weight, all thanks to the vision of a Queens New York homemaker named Jean Nidetch. Before she lost weight, Nidetch described herself as “an overweight housewife obsessed with eating cookies.” She was five feet seven inches tall, weighed 214 pounds, and had tried every diet and drug known to man, but always gained back whatever weight she had lost.
On her own, Nidetch developed a weight loss regimen that consisted of a sensible diet combined with group support. The support group began with six women and soon grew to forty. Nidetch lost 72 pounds. With the help of inaugural weight loss clients Al and Felice Lippert, it became a business. The Weight Watchers system revolutionized complex calorie counting with an easy points system. That, combined with the group support, made for a winning formula. By 1967, Weight Watchers International had 132 franchises around the world. In 1990, the company was bought by Heinz, who helped introduce a whole line of frozen meals called Weight Watchers Smart Ones. Oprah Winfrey, who lost weight on the Weight Watchers plan, became a partner in 2016 and joined the board of directors.
Historically, Weight Watchers’ competition has been Jenny Craig, Nutrisystem, and the more recent newcomer Noom. But the bigger bite out of the market today is being taken by Ozempic and other high tech weight loss drugs which have upended the traditional competitive set. Weight loss medications in America also have an interesting history. During the 1950s and 60s, one of the most popular diet pills was Obetrol—a cocktail of amphetamine-mixed salts and methamphetamine (seriously?) that coincidentally was also artist Andy Warhol’s recreational drug of choice. Ozempic, however, shows that pharmacology around weight loss drugs has improved somewhat in the nearly 75 years since big pharma was pushing Obetrol. Ozempic works by mimicking a naturally occurring hormone, slowing digestion and sending a signal to your brain that you’re full.
Weight Watchers’ new testimonial campaign from the creatives at Ogilvy—Weight Watchers’ second agency of record in the last ten months—shows classy execution but no big idea. These spots are standard testimonial fare, though perhaps a little more sincere. One spot features a client named Lia, who tells us she’s had issues around food since childhood. She hints at the more holistic approach from Weight Watchers that helped her through the “chrysalis” stage to how we see her today: slim and stylish. Lia claims to have lost 70 pounds. Hats off to her. According to a chart created by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), that’s the average weight of an eight-year-old boy.
In another commercial in the campaign, we meet Mike. His story is a little murkier. He claims to have lost 50 pounds before “stalling.” Then, on the advice of a friend, he joined Weight Watchers and is pleased with his results which, from his testimony, were achieved by a combination of the program and an unspecified diet medication (hopefully not Obetrol). We see that Mike has a ways to go, but as the viewer, we accept him as a “work in progress.”
The big question: will this tactic of using real people help Weight Watchers put points on the board—or at least help retain current clients or prevent more erosion of their share from Ozempic? Call me a pessimist, but I vote “no.” My read on the current culture is that people would rather take the easy route to weight loss—a shot of Ozempic—than sit on somebody else’s in some small group and have to share an obsession for Chips Ahoy. I get it. As I scan Weight Watchers’ chart of “zero point” foods (foods you can eat as much of as you want), it’s a pretty bleak list: boneless, skinless chicken breast, brown rice pasta, and fat-free cottage cheese. Nothing makes me want to pick up the phone and order a pepperoni pizza more.
