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Are Diet Companies Moving Away From Celebrity Endorsements?

MedpageToday
Are the days of celebrity diet endorsements over?

No, but you may well be seeing fewer of them.

The newest ad campaign by Jenny Craig is notable in that the company's prime celebrity endorser, actress Valerie Bertinelli, has no part in the commercial.

Instead, their new animated ads focus on food. According to the Today show, a Jenny Craig spokesperson told them their new strategy is about "delicious food, personal consultants, and flexible options."

In fact, advertisers are saying that celebrity pitches may not be the best option for diet ads.

An interview with advertising executive Donny Deutsch and nutritionist Brooke Alpert explains it:


In addition, it can be hard to find a celebrity that appeals to everyone, and that may be the difference about whether a consumer will even listen to the ad. As one consumer put it:

"If it's a celebrity I really like, I usually remember it, and if it's not, I don't."
As Peter Daboll, CEO of Ace Metrix, a television and video analytics company says, " As a whole, we see in our data that ads that have a celebrity in it do less well than ads that don't.

In general, dieters tend to be more interested in "regular" people who have lost weight, and with who they can more easily identify. There's a reason why magazine designates several issues a year to weight loss of "real people" in addition to its reporting of celebrity diet and weight loss.

With nearly 108 million dieters at any given time, leading to business estimated to be worth over $61 billion, the major weight loss companies are trying all the angles to get people to try their way of losing weight.

What do you think? Do you think using celebrities for weight loss diets is different than using them to endorse other products or to promote health care awareness?