What Weight Watchers Offers That Ozempic Can’t

June 07, 2023

Lauren: A shameless plug is the only kind of plug.

Gideon: I agree.

Lauren: And I am here for it.

Gideon: Recently we launched a new series for the magazine that includes long in-depth interviews with people we think are especially interesting. When you pick up the July issue of WIRED, as I know you will, you'll see interviews with some very big names.

Lauren: That's right. And we're not going to give them all away. But as part of this series, I had the chance to go to New York last month and spend a couple of days with Sima Sistani, and ask her about Weight Watchers’ renewed mission.

Gideon: Renewed mission. You sound a little skeptical.

Lauren: Well, Weight Watchers has this interesting history. It started back in the 1960s. It was popularized by women meeting up in living rooms, sharing tips on weight loss. So from the beginning, the emphasis was on weight, and it was a membership model. It has other revenue streams too, like it sells packaged foods. And actually from the late ’70s to late ’90s, it was owned by Heinz.

Gideon: As in “Beanz Meanz Heinz.”

Lauren: Well, I was thinking the ketchup company, but what is that? “Beanz Meanz Heinz”?

Gideon: Oh, that's, that's how they advertise it in the UK. When I was growing up, the baked beans. “Beanz Meanz Heinz.”

Lauren: Oh. Oh, OK. So sure. The baked beans Heinz. At some point the company was spun out again. And then in 2018, Weight Watchers pivoted to wellness. Wellness because we were all becoming very interested in wellness.

Gideon: Thank you. Gwyneth Paltrow.

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Lauren: Yes. Gwyneth Paltrow probably deserves some credit for that trend. The company also changed its name in 2018 to WW because it was—

Gideon: Because the whole concept of weight had become toxic.

Lauren: That's right. There was a lot of conversation about—

Gideon: Body shaming.

Lauren: Body shaming. Body acceptance. Exactly. And the implication in Weight Watchers was that you are supposed to lose weight and so the company said “weight” was not the word we want to use anymore. We’re WW: We are all about wellness.

Gideon: And how did that go?

Lauren: The pivot didn't go so well. Yeah. And then the pandemic really didn't help things.

Gideon: Right. Kind of hard when your whole strategy is in-person meetings.

Lauren: Mm-hmm. And when it's foundational to your whole business. So, when Sima was brought on in early 2022 to run the company, she basically decided to return Weight Watchers to its original mission, which is weight management. But she also had to make it much more compelling as a digital business because we're just not in the habit of in-person meetings as much anymore.

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Gideon: OK. And how did Sima’s career set her up for this?

Lauren: Ah, good question. So she actually does have a background in social media growth. She worked as the head of media at Tumblr. And then was CEO of a live video chatting app called Houseparty. Have you ever used Houseparty?

Gideon: Should I have?

Lauren: I cannot picture you hanging out on Houseparty, I have to say. Uh, but it was a very social app. It wasn't one-on-one like FaceTime is. It was like, have a bunch of friends just drop in on your live video chat.

Gideon: So not me.

Lauren: Right, I didn't think so. But anyway, the Weight Watchers job came about for Sima because of that need for more social growth at the company. However, I'm not quite sure if I'd call this another pivot yet, but now everyone is talking about weight loss drugs, these GLP-1 receptor medications.

Gideon: You mean like Ozempic or Wegovy or Mounjaro?

Lauren: Exactly.

Gideon: So who even needs weight tracking apps anymore when you have these drugs? How does that affect their strategy?

Lauren: And that's the question. That's exactly what I wanted to ask her about because, in some ways, these new medications feel like the future of weight loss, like a potential paradigm shift here, and it's still early days for these drugs. There are side effects. Scientists and researchers are still trying to figure out what the long-term effects of them will be, but we're kind of at a turning point in how we're talking about weight right now. And these clinical interventions have come into play. So I asked Sima all about that in our conversation and that's happening right after the break.

[Break]

Lauren: Sima, thank you so much for joining me on Have a Nice Future.

Sima: Thank you. So good to be here.

Lauren: Are you having a nice future?

Sima: I'm having a nice present. I'm anticipating a nice future.

Lauren: What makes you anticipate a nice future?

Sima: Well, I think I'm an optimist by nature, but, I mean, is there another way to be?

Lauren: Is that like a binary? If you're not an optimist, you're a nihilist? It's just not a way to live?

Sima: There's probably some gray, but I tend to be a zero and one kind of gal.

Lauren: So I brought you on today not to talk about nihilism—

Sima: [Laugh]

Lauren: Although I do wanna talk about optimism at some point later in the show. I brought you on today to talk about running Weight Watchers. First, let's talk broadly about diet culture. How has diet culture changed since you've been watching this space?

Sima: Well, I think diet culture is a reflection of our culture at large. I think that the evolution of body positivity to body neutrality was really welcome. And um, you know, this idea that we should all love our bodies no matter what shape, no matter what size, and where body positivity and body neutrality is now evolving further past is around, and, and this is my opinion, is around health equity.

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What Weight Watchers Offers That Ozempic Can’t

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