A 2005 WHO study found that just over 20% of Australian adults are obese, which is expected to rise to roughly 29% in 2010 if current trends continue. In the 2005 National Health Survey, 53.6% of Australians reported being overweight (above a 25 BMI), with 18% falling into the "obese" category (above a 30 BMI)
Companies such Weight Watchers have become so successful as a result of the statistics above. Their origin goes back to the earliest days of Weight Watchers, the brainchild of Jean Nidetch, who in 1961 started hosting weekly meetings with other overweight friends at her home to talk about weight and dieting. The checking account balance with which she turned the idea into a business was a mere $1.56, TIME later reported. Nidetch eventually went from 214 lbs. to 142. And, though early participants only paid a few dollars to participate—$3 for initiation plus $2 a week, in 1967—Nidetch and fellow founders became millionaires when Weight Watchers went public in 1968, according to the New York Times. Eventually Weight Watchers was sold to H.J. Heinz.
Weight Watchers’ early success was remarkable because the specifics of the diet it promoted weren’t actually anything new, TIME noted in 1972. What made the program special was that it was based so extensively on talking. Nidetch who passed away in April of this year, explained that, “Compulsive eating is an emotional problem, and we use an emotional approach to its solution.” Perhaps the best explanation for the power of Nidetch’s idea came from Jerry Pozner, a Long Island University junior who dropped from 238 lbs. to 137 lbs. and once told TIME that, “People eat because they’re lonely. When you come to Weight Watchers, you’re not lonely any more.”
1. Why would a change in discretionary income worry (unemployment, high cost of livings and youth unemployment) affect the weight watch industry?
2. Which environmental forces are marketers at weight watch companies most likely monitor? Explain your answer using theory
3. Consumers’ efforts to reduce their food consumption or rather change what they eat represents which environmental force?
4. Why is monitoring the environment important for marketers?