Dominating my New York City subway car this week was the appealing new Weight Watchers ad campaign, highlighting the company’s position as the non-diet site for people who long to shed pounds:
• “Stop dieting. Start living.”
• “People don’t fail, diets do”
and this one:
• “Diets are mean,” another said. And “Go on a diet diet”
As you will note below, smiling New Yorkers had other things on their minds, though that guy didn’t come over and break my nose.
The rise (not for the first time) of the anti-diet diet message is not limited to Weight Watchers. A Campbell’s Soup print ad says “Stop ‘dieting’ and start tasting.” Slim-Fast shows a gorgeous, weight-appropriate woman beside a picture of a string bean and says, vis-à-vis the bean, “There’s a word for the way society sees bodies: insane.”
With advertising it’s all about zeitgeist. These ads work because they suggest the culture may be doing a Christopher Hitchens on the superstitious claptrap that is the Miracle Diet. That’s seems like a healthy shift to me.
Others don’t buy it. The “don’t diet” message of early 2008 is fueling anger among body-size-acceptance advocates (such as those on BigFatBlog.com), who feel their language is being co-opted.
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