SlimFast Embraces Racier Persona
The weight loss brand's new campaign, Get What You Really Want, targets women with humor.
Like those motivated to lose weight, SlimFast is looking to change its image.
After some recent “performance issues,” the weight loss brand sees 2013 as a restart and is repositioning itself by launching a campaign it says has “a bold, new attitude that will liberate women to tell the truth about why they really want to lose weight.”
The Get What You Really Want campaign juxtaposes the reasons women say they want to lose weight with their actual motivations. It integrates humor while trying to adopt the persona of a girlfriend that female consumers can laugh with.
Advertising firm The Bull-White House created the campaign.
The promotion includes print and digital elements. The print ads are in magazines like Allure, Star, Entertainment Weekly and Cosmopolitan. In addition, three videos will run across online properties like Redbook, Marie Claire, Glamour and Elle and can also be viewed on the SlimFast website. According to Wesley Boas, director of SlimFast, they launched on the SlimFast site in early April.
The new videos have what Boas says SlimFast calls a “naughtiness spectrum” and are “rated” PG to NC-17. They discuss why different women want to lose weight and, like movie ratings, get progressively racier.
“What we want to do is deploy them at different times of day on different websites,” Boas says. “Cosmopolitan.com can be more NC-17, but on Redbook we’d be more PG. It’s about how can we tailor the funny element to be more targeted to that specific audience versus a [one-size-fits-all approach]?”
The idea is to liberate women to come out of the “PC closet,” Boas says.
“It may not be the most virtuous reason [for losing weight] — they want to look good naked, or they want to look good in skinny jeans or they want to look good on vacation — but it’s about being honest,” she adds.
The SlimFast site also features a Poll of the Week that asks questions like, “What type of clothing are you excited to get back into (or out of) most?”
Boas says SlimFast’s campaign is also about trying to convince women to honestly tell the brand what they want. Responses to these polls will potentially be used in future print/digital assets and ECRM campaigns.
SlimFast’s target is the so-called Slimmer, or consumer looking to lose around 20 pounds.
Boas says 20 pounds isn’t going to overhaul a user’s health profile, but it will make her look better, which aligns with campaign themes.
“When she looks better, she feels better and has her mojo back,” Boas says.
The campaign also includes a “new social ecosystem,” such as a future Pinterest page.
SlimFast has 131,000 likes on Facebook and about 4,600 followers on Twitter.
SlimFast is a Unilever brand.
