May 20, 2024
Medifast today announced the launch of the first phase of its multimillion-dollar national marketing campaign. The campaign will highlight OPTAVIA’s new offering in collaboration with LifeMD®, the GLP-1 Lifestyle Program.
View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240520770526/en/
This will be an investment of up to $30 million in company-led marketing efforts. Medifast is committed to driving growth and enhancing brand visibility. This high-profile national campaign, led by Dentsu Creative and global digital-first media agency iProspect, aims to elevate brand awareness, foster engagement and drive customer conversion.
Medifast’s investment is planned to ramp up in the second half of 2024 and form the foundation of the company’s strategy to return to growth, broadening and deepening its acquisition channels.
“Rising consumer interest in GLP-1s has also brought about many questions around nutrition, muscle health and sustainability as a long-term solution for all customers. We see an incredible need for support beyond the medications, including nutrition and lifestyle – which aligns to what we have been offering for more than 40 years. In addition, we recognize significant demand for guidance from a coach and clinician,” said Dan Chard, Chairman and CEO of Medifast. “We see this marketing campaign as a way to increase education around medical weight loss, highlighting the importance of taking care of one’s whole self, no matter the journey one chooses.”
The marketing campaign will promote the new GLP-1 Nutrition Support Kit, which provides nutritional support for those using weight loss medications. The kit, available for $217.15 per month with enrollment in the auto ship program, OPTAVIA Premier (retail price is $242.15), includes two OPTAVIA ACTIVE Whey Protein Powder products and five boxes of OPTAVIA Fuelings, which are scientifically designed, portion-controlled, high-protein, fortified foods.
The campaign will also highlight a monthly LifeMD subscription, which includes access to a medical provider, bloodwork and prescription and insurance support.
DietBusinessWatch/Marketdata Commentary
We have been waiting a long time for Medifast to spend some money on a national ad campaign, to compete with NutriSystem, Weight Watchers, GOLO and many others. Advertising generates demand in the weight loss market, and is essential to capture dieters’ share of mind. This is a good start but we think the $30 million is way too little to invest. (WW and NutriSystem each typically spend $200+ million/year on marketing/advertising). One could argue that, based on historical market averages, a national weight loss company should be spending at least 15-20% of sales on marketing/advertising. Based on Medifast’s expected $700 million in revenues this year, that equates to $105 million. Now that Medifast has a lot less health coaches than just a few years ago, significantly less is being spent on marketing overall. Many consumers (dieters) still don’t consider Medifast or Optavia a household brand name. That has to change if the company is to resume its growth. Medifast should not be relying solely on its health coaches to create demand and company exposure via social media. A consistent and ongoing, year-round ad campaign, with a unified message, is what is required in today’s market, rather than thousands of individual marketing messages created by inexperienced marketers (company health coaches). Medifast has a lot of catching up to do.
For More Information About The U.S. Weight Loss Market…
Marketdata LLC has just published a new analysis of the weight loss market: “The U.S. Weight Loss Market: 2024 Status Report & Forecast”, March 2024, 107 Pages.
Some findings:
- Obesity medications.. This market for prescription drugs in the U.S. more than doubled in 2023, from an estimated $5.1 billion in 2022 to $11.9 billion in 2023 as demand continued to soar for drugs such as Novo Nordisk’s Saxenda, Wegovy and Ozempic, as well as the entry of new drugs such as Mounjaro and Zepbound into the market.
- Medical weight loss programs and services were estimated to be worth $21.0 billion in 2023. This is the highest share of the market posted since 1989. Medical programs are provided by independent physicians (incl. bariatricians), clinics, hospitals, and medical weight loss franchises.
This new Marketdata report presents a wrap-up of 2023 performance for the U.S. weight loss market during the obesity drugs market explosion and a forecast for 2024. The value of the total market is estimated to have grown to a historic peak of $90 billion in 2023, boosted by soaring sales of the popular prescription GLP-1 weight loss drugs. This is a paradigm shift to medical programs, and a major challenge for competing commercial diet companies, which lost $1 billion in revenues since 2022.
GLP-1 drugs are a game changer in terms of the number of medications now on the market, plus others to come in the next several years. They have affected dieter behavior and how commercial diet companies operate. Nearly all non-medical segments of the market have felt the pain of declining sales, and 26,500 weight loss coaches have lost their jobs. However, more physicians are adding weight loss to their practices, bariatric surgeries are hitting new highs, and caseloads/revenues at medical weight loss franchises and at bariatricians are growing.
The report includes in-depth analyses of: 2020-2023 market/revenue performance, recent competitor and market developments, current dieter trends, diet company advertising spending, and a new analysis of the number and salaries of weight loss coaches in the industry. Special emphasis and analysis on the obesity drugs market, risks, what could derail the market, and why there is a wild west environment emerging – problems with using cheaper compounded drugs that are not FDA-approved.
Individual Status Reports and the Effects of the obesity drugs boom on operations and revenues, for ALL major weight loss market segments… diet soft drinks, artificial sweeteners, health clubs industry, commercial weight loss chains, retail meal replacements and retail appetite suppressants, medical programs (physicians, hospitals/clinic programs, prescription diet drugs, bariatricians, weight loss surgeries), and low-calorie dinner entrees.
Includes profiles/updated outlooks for: WW, NutriSystem, Jenny Craig, Medifast, Herbalife, Glanbia (Slim-Fast), Noom, Simply Good Foods (Atkins), HMR Boston, Lindora, and Profile by Sanford. Marketdata analysis of company strategy, conference calls.
Order This Report
Go to marketdataenterprises.com, Choose Buy Reports tab on home page for online store, go to page 4 of store listings to find this study, add to basket and pay, checkout. Price: $895. Or, call us at: 813-971-8080 and charge it. Table of Contents available at the Studies page, choose Services tab on home page, then Diet Market – Our Specialty.