Tuesday, May 08, 2007
How Can Diet Plan Attendance Be Down?
byWhen you see scary obesity statistics like this its difficult to understand why Weight Watchers and others in their category have to revamp their marketing to boost diet-plan attendance. A Marketing Daily story (free registration may be required) says Weight Watchers is hoping a new national television campaign produced by McCann-Erickson will boost attendance at its weight-loss meetings. So far the only area where Weight Watchers has showed recent gains is with its online efforts (revenues up 14%).
The article also references Marketdata research that says the entire U.S. weight loss industry is suffering as dieters are increasingly turning to online diet programs as a more convenient and economical alternative to meetings.
It also seems a little ironic that last year the food giant, Nestle, purchased Jenny Craig for $600 million. Talk about vertical marketing. They sell you chocolate to put on the weight, and then get your dollars again when they enlist Kristie Alley (and Valerie Bertinelli) to convince you to slim down.
