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When it rebranded as WW, it seemed like the writing was once at the wall for WeightWatchers. BBD Perfect Storm Health’s Nick Dutnall believes the logo has seized relevance thru its newest push into prescribed drugs.
When WeightWatchers rebranded to WW in 2018, the logo followed a brand new slogan: ‘Wellness That Works’. Seven years later, that slogan feels much less like a tagline and extra like a strategic manifesto, particularly in mild of the logo’s collaboration with CheqUp, a number one supplier of GLP-1 (Glucagon-like Peptide-1) medication.
Anyone acquainted with WeightWatchers will admire the magnitude of this partnership. Founded in 1964, the logo’s identification is rooted in its points-based device, with foods assigned a elements worth in line with energy and dietary content material. This framework has resonated with other people desperate to shed a couple of kilos for years – club peaked at virtually 5 million individuals in 2018.
But occasions alternate.
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Consumer personal tastes evolve.
In the sector of weight control, GLP-1s have emerged as a dominant pressure out there, and the urge for food for those ‘shortcut’ medication simplest seems to be rising.
The international GLP-1 marketplace was once valued at $46bn in 2024; anticipated to exceed $322bn by way of 2034. Ozempic could also be the primary emblem to come back to thoughts on this area, however it’s infrequently the one one turning heads. A head-to-head trial not too long ago published Mounjaro to be one of the efficient choices. It’s additionally changing into an increasing number of simple for other people to get their fingers on those merchandise – in america, Kourtney Kardashian’s Lemme now sells a plant-based GLP-1 complement, getting rid of the desire for a prescription.
Some would possibly counsel that WeightWatchers’ new technique is drastic.
Others would move so far as to mention it’s ‘radical’. However, it’s in reality the easiest instance of a trade that understands when it’s fading out of relevance, and of a survival technique that is still true to a emblem’s unique identification.
In this technique, WeightWatchers remains to be doing what it has at all times achieved: supporting other people on their adventure to drop some pounds. Not each and every emblem has the boldness required to execute this kind of daring pivot, particularly one that is still devoted to its core aim whilst utterly rethinking methods to put across this message to the sector.
Beware crash diets
Much of the recognition related to weight-loss medication is they’re thought to be a cheat code – a tablet that places customers at the rapid observe to their desired determine.
Even Oprah Winfrey, herself a WeightWatchers board member for 9 years, renounced those medication in a 2023 interview, labelling them “the easy way out”.
That is, till she hand over WeightWatchers in February 2023.
Her resolution to step down was once influenced by way of the reality she’d begun the usage of Wegovy, in addition to any other GLP-1 drug (Zepbound), to lend a hand her set up her weight. But, seriously, the medication have been used at the side of “regular exercise and other lifestyle tweaks”.
For all of the noise round weight-loss medication, there’s a caveat to their effectiveness.
As came upon in a 2024 find out about, “body weight and composition were maintained one year after termination of supervised exercise, in contrast to… treatment with obesity pharmacotherapy alone.”
In different phrases, customers can not merely leisure on their laurels and be expecting miracles.
This is why WeightWatchers’ CheqUp partnership must be thought to be a shrewd transfer. As a emblem we all know has traditionally put all of its eggs in the way of life basket, WeightWatchers understands that well being is inherently human. Because of this, tens of millions of customers accept as true with the logo to steer their way of life possible choices and adjustments.
Yes, this represents a seismic shift for the logo, however it’s one who makes very best sense. While the remainder of the load loss trade reveals itself at a crossroads, WeightWatchers is offering a masterclass in methods to effectively future-proof.
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Supplementing its private, reassuring contact with a brand new, drug-centric provider is working example of ways conventional choices and clinical innovation can coexist.
Need evidence? Look on the (more than one) puddings
WeightWatchers is infrequently the primary legacy emblem to pivot to stay tempo with rising traits and applied sciences. It wasn’t even the one emblem within the well being and self-improvement area to expand its horizons that week.
Take Danone, the meals merchandise corporate, which known the rising hobby in protein-rich merchandise. This call for precipitated the corporate to release a brand new protein shake, the usage of its Oikos yogurt emblem as the basis for concentrated on this hole out there.
It’s necessary to worry that this wasn’t Danone’s first foray into wellness-related merchandise. Both Activia and Skyr have lengthy been advertised as conducive to just right well being, due to their distinctive bacterial makeup and top protein rely, respectively. Although its newest enlargement is a great transfer, Danone’s unique, related enjoy within the area guarantees that enduring relevance doesn’t come at the price of identification dissolution.
Although running in an absolutely other trade, Lego is any other heritage emblem proving evolution is at all times imaginable – irrespective of how a lot pores and skin you could have within the sport. Nowhere is that this extra obvious than its development to switching to extra renewable and recycled plastics for its bricks by way of 2032.
When it involves shopper priorities, sustainability has been best of the docket for a while. As some distance again as 2019, virtually two-thirds said they sought after to shop for from purpose-driven manufacturers that recommend for sustainability.
Lego can have used its long-standing place as one of the vital global’s essential toy producers to skate across the matter. Instead the trade made up our minds the 2 realities weren’t mutually unique. Bringing operations into the twenty-first century, Lego now has trendy production requirements whilst maintaining the core rules which underpin the logo – play, togetherness and finding out – entrance and centre.
These manufacturers, similar to WeightWatchers, saved religion with their narrative and aim. Provided that the transformation doesn’t come on the expense of a emblem’s long-standing identification, it seems that they may be able to have their cake and devour it, too.
Nick Dutnall is the managing spouse of BBD Perfect Storm Health, the specialist well being department of the logo and cultural transformation firm BBD Perfect Storm. With over 20 years of enjoy in healthcare advertising and communications, Nick has held senior roles each client-side and agency-side, operating with one of the vital global’s main pharmaceutical and well being manufacturers, together with Novo Nordisk, Pfizer, Abbott, AstraZeneca, Janssen, ViiV, Bupa, Johnson & Johnson, Medtronic, Invisalign, and Smith & Nephew.
