You think behemoth brands will last forever. But historically, despite their market dominance and huge profitability, they often rest on their laurels and forget about their audience. Even when there are clear opportunities for them to change and retain their overall position, through poor choices (naivety, sluggish speed of change, pride, or just generally taking their eye off the ball) they tend to piss away their business in the blink of an eye. Classic examples of this are Blockbuster and Kodak.
Take WW (that’ll be WeightWatchers to me and you). Although rebranding and changing their name / most recognisable asset was a mind numbing mistake in itself, they failed to see the improvement of weight loss drugs coming down the line and the impact it was going to have on their business. Ozempic, Mounjaro and Wegovy, amongst others, have allowed people to (usually) lose weight easily and reliably without the effort of dieting, exercise, complex proprietary ‘points’ systems (that are always changing to keep you locked in) and meetings to have group weigh-ins. With such a large active membership, WW should have seen this on the horizon and either bought, licensed or partnered with a drug company to produce it for them much sooner, as they already had a huge membership base who trusted the brand and would have been willing customers. It could even have been added to their services, along with diet plans, cook books, group meetings, online coaching, AI coaches / encouragement, exercise plans.
They could and should have led this new era and approach for weight loss. Instead, the boat sailed right past them as they were too wrapped up fiddling around the edges of their offering, and instead, earlier this year cruised straight in to the courts to file for US bankruptcy protection. They’ve now (very) belatedly added it in to their offering with it dangerously looking like too little, too late.
Your customers and clients stay the same, right up until something changes and, suddenly, so do they. The trick is to always keep one eye on them and the other on whatever else is coming that might help fill the need you’re already currently filling. Then embrace it and get ahead of it before it destroys you. It might not be today, this year, or even this decade, but it will come.
— Know your audience
