Encore: Diet Wars | Losing Streak | 4

Business Wars

Wondery

History, Business, David Brown, Management

4.6 • 13.2K Ratings

🗓️ 12 April 2023

⏱️ 39 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

It's the 2010s and the weight-loss industry's battling intensifying headwinds. Calorie-counting smartphone apps are attracting millions of users and the diet backlash is getting louder by the day.

As the pressure mounts, Weight Watchers realizes it needs to move with the times and reinvent itself. But it soon finds itself facing a conundrum: how to change convincingly without alienating the dieters the business depends on?

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Transcript

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0:00.0	A note to listeners, the material in this episode covers the weight loss industry and diet culture,
0:05.4	which could be upsetting for some people.
0:07.5	This episode also contains adult language.
0:10.8	This series originally aired exclusively on Wondering Plus in 2022.
0:15.3	Wondering on Wondering.
0:21.6	November 2012, Nutra System headquarters for Washington, Pennsylvania.
0:27.1	Nutra System CEO Dawn Zeer looks up at the young executive who's sitting on the other side
0:32.3	of the meeting room table.
0:34.0	Sorry, run that past me again.
0:36.1	We're doing what?
0:37.2	We include free shakes or frozen entrees with every 28-day package of food we ship.
0:42.9	The 47-year-old Zeer became Nutra System's first female CEO a few days ago, and she's
0:48.8	inherited a mess.
0:50.9	In the past five years, sales have fallen by 50 percent, and the company's racking up serious
0:56.8	losses.
0:57.8	If Zeer can't diagnose and treat the sickness infecting the company, fast, her time here
1:04.4	will be short.
1:05.9	She questions the executive again.
1:07.9	Yes, but why are we giving customers these freebies?
1:12.7	Oh, well, it helps with retention and increases sales.
1:17.2	Zeer's radar goes up.
1:19.2	The answer is too quick, too clean.
	...

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