Tolleson looked for an agency that would be bold and push boundaries, one that would pull the brand outside its comfort zone as well take a digital native approach to how it thinks about creative from the ground up. She also wanted an agency that would be able to collaborate with WeightWatchers’ in-house creative team to formulate solutions.
“We’re a very people-first agency, and we could feel on the other side that it was the same way. Everybody had a voice in the room and we had a voice in the room… it was like one team trying to figure out where we wanted to go and what we wanted to do together. And the excitement was palpable,” said Andrea Diquez, global CEO at Gut.
Tolleson added that the company needs to get better at feature marketing for its app, since 80% of its members now are app-only users. Gut has experience there, but also can handle bold creative, launch new features and be the go-to for the company’s advocacy work, helping improve the lives of people living with obesity.
“It’s a wide spectrum, and you might think, ‘Oh, I need to have different agencies for these different things.’ And what has been great about Gut is that they can span that kind of creativity spectrum and deliver great work,” said Tolleson.
In the past, WeightWatchers has worked with various agencies, including Anomaly and recently Maximum Effort, but Gut will be the lead for the company moving forward as its AOR.
What excites Tolleson about the collaboration with Gut is the potential to drive real cultural change in a way that is positive for society, in particular for people living with obesity who have often been overlooked and underserved.
Diquez added that she and many others at Gut are fans of the brand and that their collaboration is one built around mutual respect.
“It’s a brand that can really change the world, because of what it is and how the world is today in terms of people living with obesity. So we want to be part of that,” said Diquez.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but the 2022 measured media spend for WeightWatchers is $67 million, according to COMvergence.
