Hasta La Creative!

DiMassimo Goldstein, an independent, New York-based agency, has been selected by Weight Watchers to handle the brand’s spring campaign, which will debut Sunday, AdAge reports.

Weight Watchers decided to leave W+K last month after less than a year with the agency, in a move many attribute to an attempt to save money on the part of the struggling company. W+K took over for McCann Erickson New York in April of 2014, at which time Weight Watchers proceeded to drop its celebrity spokespeople.

A Weight Watchers spokesperson stated that this is not an agency of record selection and that the brand will “continue to evaluate agencies for the longer term.” AdAge notes that DiMassimo Goldstein “has experience crafting ads for subscription-model businesses, ranging from Netflix and eBay to Reader’s Digest and FreshDirect.” We featured the agency’s work on the FreshDirect broadcast spot “Lonely Shopping Cart” last year.

As you may remember, W+K’s last work for the client was its “All You Can Eat” Super Bowl ad featuring voiceover work from Breaking Bad’s Aaron Paul.

This morning we learned that Weight Watchers, which made news last April by leaving McCann New York for Wieden+Kennedy after seven years with the former agency, will run its first-ever Super Bowl ad during this year’s game on February 1st.

The decision to advertise during the Big Game marks the latest step in Weight Watchers’ marketing shift, which includes the new logo seen above. The client’s first Wieden+Kennedy campaign debuted in November, eschewing previous celebrity-heavy messaging tactics in favor of an emotional appeal to its members and their very human desire to “eat a snack.”

At the time, the company’s president told The New York Times that the decision to part ways with spokesperson Jessica Simpson reflected its efforts “both to distinguish itself from competitors and to better reflect the challenge of weight loss.”

Given the fact that Weight Watchers spends approximately $150M on measured media each year and that the NFL’s fastest-growing demographic is young women, the Super Bowl XLIX news does not come as a complete surprise — but this year will mark first time in the company’s 50+ year history that it has paid the more than $4M required to score a spot during the game.

In addition to Weight Watchers, W+K will run ads for TurboTax, Squarespace, and (possibly) Coca-Cola during Super Bowl XLIX.

We’ve reached out to both agency and client for comment; updates when we receive them.

Advertising Agency: Euro RSCG Duesseldorf, Germany
Creative Directors: Florian Meimberg, Torsten Pollmann, Harald Linsenmeier
Art Director: Joerg Sachtleben
Producer: Christian Kaeutner