Weight Watchers scraps WW Black campaign promotion after fall-out from light bulb fiasco
Two days after being criticised for sending female journalists “mood light bulbs” Weight Watchers has announced the brand will no longer “actively promote” the campaign and has apologised for causing offence.
The weight loss company caused a storm when it sent the light bulbs to journalists as a teaser to the campaign and to promote independent research that showed a majority of women were uncomfortable with their bodies and did not want to have sex with the lights on.
The campaign was the first of its type for the brand in Australia, focusing on sex as a motivator for weight loss.
Lacking context, the light bulbs, which included the message “This globe is a ‘mood light’ designed to give you a little boost in the bedroom (a PG sex toy, if you will)”, caused anger among some journalists who received them and then tweeted their views.
Ridiculous. 1 journo took offence. Who cares. You can’t do anything nowadays without offending someone or having someone whinge for no good reason.
It wasn’t just 1 journo, it was a lot of men and women, saying that it intimated that overweight people didn’t want to have sex with the light on.
Well done ww. It’s an awful campaign. Well done for pulling it.
brilliant and not one mention of the actual agency name.
Be More Forthcoming.
idiots.
Nicely done.
This was a terrible idea from the start, damaged the brand. How this stupid campaign was approved is beyond me, given how careful the company has been to protect their brand image in the past. The execution is slick, but you cannot polish a turd.
A whinging guardian blogger and they scrap it? Pretty pathetic. You read the comments and many don’t really see the issue with the insight
I heard only one complaint. So there must have only been one complaint.
– commenter logic
Not really ‘home of the long idea’ then.
Pathetic.
Skinny, middle-class PC elitists are offended on behalf of the rest of us as usual. It’s the condescension by these ideologues that’s offensive, not some stupid ad campaign.
It’s true and we all know it. Big deal. Do you think it goes away by not talking about it? Grow the f up!
And pathetic of the agency and client to bend over backwards to please these authoritarians.
Can’t you stand up for yourself, just for once? No actual offence was caused, all you do is inflating the self-righteousness of these so-called journalists even more.
Those of us who care about women and girls and understand know that this campaign was one of the most pathetic attempts to play on a woman’s insecurity and make some money off of that. Confidence in tbe bedroom can be achieved by every body no matter their size, shape, gender, ability etc when we stop feeding this culture of BS pepetuated by those who can profit from our insecurities. I say the withdrawl from actively promoting thus campaign is a win for those who want to see women thrive just the way they are.
FFF