Ana Gasteyer, the former “Saturday Night Live” cast member who currently stars on “Suburgatory” on ABC, for instance, enrolled without fanfare in July.
“I came down from ‘Suburgatory’ season one and snacked for four months,” Ms. Gasteyer said in an interview. “I packed on a quick 15 and flew up an astonishing two sizes.”
Because she enrolled in Weight Watchers Online, which includes a phone app to evaluate on-the-go food choices, she never attended weigh-in support meetings and flew under the company’s radar.
A Twitter user with more than 70,000 followers, Ms. Gasteyer began sending Twitter messages about Weight Watchers and its points system, where foods have point values related to caloric content, and users can raise daily point allotments by exercising.
“Hey @Weightwatchers,” Ms. Gasteyer wrote on Nov. 30. “How many Activity points for sweatily trying to get out of a Spanx undershirt?”
On Dec. 10, she wrote, “Hey @WeightWatchers I binged on Children’s Gummy Vites can it be my cheat day?”
And on Jan. 1, “Hey @WeightWatchers how many #activitypoints for re-threading string thru the waistband of my gym shorts? Came out in dryer so can’t workout.”
Cheryl Callan, the chief marketing officer at Weight Watchers, said some celebrities who require privacy opt for what she called a V.I.P. program, working individually with representatives rather than attending meetings.
But executives at Weight Watchers, which happened to advertise on “Suburgatory,” were not aware that Ms. Gasteyer was enrolled until its social media team pointed out the Twitter messages, Ms. Callan said. Although the comedian was joking about the program, Ms. Callan’s hunch was that Ms. Gasteyer was seriously engaged.
“You can tell if someone is following Weight Watchers,” Ms. Callan said, “because they become obsessed with points — in a good way.”
In February, the brand contacted Ms. Gasteyer, a mother of two who splits her time between Brooklyn and Los Angeles.
“I was shocked,” Ms. Gasteyer said of the call, which led to an endorsement offer to appear in television commercials and in other advertising.
“It felt like a no-brainer,” Ms. Gasteyer said of accepting the offer. “A lot of people on the ‘Suburgatory’ cast had already said that I was the Weight Watchers ambassador because I was always plugged into the app.”
Sean Bryan, a chief creative officer at McCann Erickson New York, the advertising agency for Weight Watchers, said he was unaware of any other company and celebrity connecting this way.
“It might be a first,” Mr. Bryan said. “I don’t know of any other time that a celebrity was identified as a user of a product through their tweets and then enlisted as a spokesperson because of that.”
Also unusual, Mr. Bryan continued, was how instrumental Ms. Gasteyer was in developing the creative approach with his agency.
The comedian, who also has performed in the Broadway musicals “Wicked” and “The Threepenny Opera,” and performs regularly in her cabaret show, “Elegant Songs from a Handsome Woman,” suggested that she could sing weight-loss related lyrics to the tune of popular songs.
It was Ms. Gasteyer’s idea to riff on “Fever,” the song made famous by Peggy Lee, with a new song, “Sleeveless.” In a new commercial, Ms. Gasteyer appears in a clingy red sequin dress and is accompanied by an upright bass player and drummer.
“Never thought I’d dig Weight Watchers,” she sings. “Never thought I’d love the app. But I tried the groovy online plan. And now my arms don’t jiggle when I clap.”
The commercial will be introduced on television and online on Sunday, with direction by Aaron Ruell, production by Biscuit Filmworks, and Ms. Gasteyer credited as a lyricist and creative consultant.
In another commercial, she riffs on Nat King Cole’s version of “Orange Colored Sky,” with “I Lost My Weight Online.”
Weight Watchers, which declined to reveal expenditures for the campaign, spent $214.5 million on all advertising in 2012, up from $173.5 million in 2011, according to the Kantar Media unit of WPP.
The campaign is promoting Weight Watchers Online exclusively, which only Mr. Barkley promoted previously. The humor in the advertising featuring Ms. Gasteyer is unusual for the brand, whose female celebrities like Ms. Hudson strike a more inspirational and uplifting tone.
Ms. Gasteyer has dropped 15 pounds and two sizes on Weight Watchers, and she said her goal was to lose five more pounds. Her husband, Charlie McKittrick, an advertising executive at Mother New York, joined the program with her in July and has lost 65 pounds, she said.
“I know it sounds cheesy, but I believe in the program,” Ms. Gasteyer said.
Brian Morrissey, editor in chief of Digiday, an online publication that covers digital marketing and media, said that Weight Watchers signing on Ms. Gasteyer after she already had been sending Twitter messages about the brand was a good antidote to widespread consumer skepticism that the enthusiasm from celebrity endorsers is authentic.
“People are so skeptical of everything, and when they see Kobe Bryant eating a Big Mac they say, ‘No way,’ ” said Mr. Morrissey, referring to the basketball star’s former endorsement deal with McDonald’s. With Ms. Gasteyer, in contrast, he continued, there is “more validation when you have this digital bread-crumb trail.”
Mr. Morrissey lauded Weight Watchers for taking a lighter tone with the campaign after Ms. Gasteyer did so on social media.
“In the age of Twitter you have to be nimble,” Mr. Morrissey said. “When people are having fun with your brand, you have to go with it.”
Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/28/business/media/weight-watchers-online-teams-up-with-ana-gasteyer.html?partner=rss&emc=rss