Nutrasystem Model That Gained Weight and Lost It Again
Skin Deep
When Dieting Becomes a Role to Play
SHE calls it wishful shrinking. Concluding May, Carrie Fisher showed off her xxx-pound weight loss, a result of 18 weeks on the Jenny Craig diet, to People magazine — the nearly contempo of the company'southward series of celebrity spokespeople to reach a major milestone in weight loss.
Information technology'due south understandable that diet companies would desire to comprise celebrities in their marketing plans. Consumers believe they "know" famous people — especially forthcoming ones like Valerie Bertinelli (Jenny Craig), Jennifer Hudson (Weight Watchers) and Marie Osmond (Nutrisystem) — and can exist inspired past them.
Only employing celebrities can be a double-edged sword. When a company advertises a successful but anonymous dieter — say, Melissa Chiliad. from Fairfield, Conn., who lost l pounds* (*results not typical) — its target audition never learns how Melissa ultimately fared. Did she keep the weight off? Did she gain the 50 pounds back, also equally 50 more? Only she and her acquaintances will ever know.
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Famous people, however, play out their weight struggles nether glaring lights. Information technology'south hard to forget commercials of the actress and former Jenny Craig spokeswoman Kirstie Alley lustily drooling over the plan'south sanctioned fettuccine, or of her triumphant disrobing on "Oprah" to reveal her new bikini body in pantyhose.
Information technology's as hard to forget photos of Ms. Alley, afterward regaining the lost weight and and then some, again on "Oprah": this time more conservatively dressed and contrite. Or, more recently, falling with an audible thud during a lift on "Dancing With the Stars."
Last twelvemonth, another diet program, the Fresh Nutrition, parted ways with its famous "spokesdieter," the pop vocaliser Carnie Wilson, after she gained weight while under contract.
"It didn't work out with Carnie," said Zalmi Duchman, chief executive for the Fresh Diet, which delivers fresh meals daily beyond the nation. "She dropped like 20 pounds in the get-go three months. Then she, I mean, she had to get off of it. There'due south no question. She might have eaten the meals, merely she ate the meals with a lot of other stuff. She started a cheesecake company."
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Mr. Duchman said he didn't fire Ms. Wilson; he chose not to renew her contract. (Ms. Wilson and Ms. Alley declined to comment for this article.)
The specter of Ms. Alley'southward and Ms. Wilson'south failure on these diet programs has done nothing to deter Nutrisystem and Jenny Craig from gathering a slew of other celebrities to represent them.
But Nutrisystem is being more than cautious. The company's current spokespeople, Ms. Osmond and Dan Marino, the sometime Miami Dolphin, were not used as guinea pigs, said Stacie Mullen, its executive of celebrity marketing, but were approached after news reports that they used the plan.
. "We accept gained our celebrity spokespeople through them beingness real clients first," Ms. Mullen said. "Nosotros learned virtually Marie equally a client of ours through an amusement magazine."
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Jenny Craig is pursuing celebrity spokespeople more voraciously. "We are interested in helping whatsoever glory lose weight," said Dana Fiser, the chief executive for Jenny Craig. Indeed, the visitor employs six electric current and active glory spokespeople: Ms. Bertinelli, Ms. Fisher, the actress Sara Rue, Jason Alexander, the actress Nicole Sullivan and the reality prove personality Ross Mathews.
Not everyone agrees with this strategy. Cheryl Callan, master marketing officer for Weight Watchers, said she suspected that what she called her competitors' "parade" of celebrities is a method of distraction.
"Information technology may be near spreading hazard," she said. In other words, if Ms. Bertinelli regains weight, members of the public won't notice because they're too captivated by Ms. Fisher's success.
Collecting celebrity spokespeople is not Weight Watchers' style. In its history, there have been merely four celebrity spokeswomen for the company: Lynn Redgrave, Jenny McCarthy, Sarah Ferguson and, at present, Ms. Hudson, who said she has lost 80 pounds on the plan.
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They have been approached by other well-known clients, Ms. Callan said, "but we take passed on a number of people who were shopping themselves around. That'due south not the sort of person we want to work with. When we get-go started talking to Jennifer, nosotros needed to believe that she would really be willing to cover the program and modify the way she ate forever. I am quite confident that nosotros won't need to part ways with Jennifer."
Ms. Fiser of Jenny Craig responded that her company's use of multiple spokespeople is not a distraction but intended to disperse inspiration over a wider demographic.
"Our celebrities accept entreatment across the spectrum of dieters," she said, "from a 50-year-quondam woman, a 32-year-old adult female getting married, a dad, a young mom, a woman who has had a lifetime of emotional touch."
And if that person who is supposed to represent the plan fails? The executives from Jenny Craig, Nutrisystem and the Fresh Nutrition all insisted that recidivism by their celebrities doesn't bother them, and even argued that information technology doesn't hurt their make.
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"If they don't practice good on it, information technology doesn't mean the production doesn't piece of work," Mr. Duchman said. "It just means that they're not sticking to it."
"The dieting public understands that the dieter has a responsibility to comply with the program," said Ms. Mullen, adding that if the dieter fails, "I don't think the public blames the program the dieter was on. We help the dieter take the get-go step to lose the weight."
Notwithstanding, long-term success is obviously prized by diet companies likewise as by dieters.
"I don't recall weight gain by a celebrity that was previously with usa somewhere along the mode is a smashing affair," said Ms. Fiser of Jenny Craig. "Just, as an arrangement, we have to work with the role we tin can control. We believe confidently in the programme that we are willing to take the take a chance. But it is a hazard."
Perhaps, if there's any existent risk here, information technology's for the celebrity. At that place are future roles to volume. Isn't drawing attending to a weight problem worse than lying low while yous secretly diet?
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But Ms. Fisher laughed at the notion of keeping her weight to herself. "What am I going to practise?" she said in a phone interview. "Lie about my weight and say I am really thin?"
She added: "It's really important to recognize that information technology'southward just equally hard for a celebrity as information technology would be for whatever other person losing weight."
And Ms. Rue, who said she has lost only over 50 pounds on Jenny Craig, said that she would exist dieting in public with or without a contract with a nutrition visitor.
"Plainly, being a spokesperson for a visitor definitely puts a calorie-free on you, but I feel like that's 1 of the reasons I wanted to practice it so publicly," she said on the phone. "Information technology was going to be public anyway. I sort of felt like the tabloids were going to write stories well-nigh it and people were going to comment about it ane style or the other so I might too have the ability dorsum and be similar: 'Yes, hither it is all out in the open. In that location's nothing to write a story well-nigh.' "
And if you know any celebrities who might desire to lose weight, transport them to Mr. Duchman. He has paid a couple of celebrities to tweet on the Fresh Diet's behalf, but he hasn't institute an official spokesperson since Ms. Wilson didn't work out.
"The experience hasn't turned us off," he said. "But we would definitely exercise more due diligence when picking the celebrity this time."
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/04/fashion/celebrities-as-diet-spokespersons-a-two-edged-sword.html
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