Name: The New Skinny on WW: Healthy Eating Means Fatter Profits
Uploaded: 2019-01-08
Duration: 5 min 19 s
Description: Dieting is out and wellness is the new mantra at Weight Watchers.

[ MUSIC ] [ APPLAUSE ] Mindy, it's a new year, and one of the most popular new year's resolutions is losing weight Getting in shape and signing up for Weight Watchers. But your company has a new name WW and a new message. Wellness that works for everybody. So how is this new approach gonna be different for 2019? Well, the way I see it is in the, let's call it old world, when you thought of diet, you thought of restriction, you thought of time element. In today's world people want healthy habits that integrate into their life. We're what people want today. They want a partner in their ability to lead healthier lives and they want an ecosystem of support. They want to know how to eat better. They want to know how to move better. They want to know how their mindset is going to help them. They wanna be motivated, and they want the power of community. And we give them all of that. So, dieting is out, wellness is in. What does wellness really mean? What is your definition of it? When I have talked to people who have had incredible transformation on WW, the first thing they say is not that they lost weight They said, I'm a better person, I'm a better parent. I'm doing things I never thought I could do. And everybody has a why? And that's what we're trying to help people fulfill. I know we're all obsessed with the wellness economy and talking about that in glowing terms. Unfortunately, the world is not getting healthier. As a matter of fact, it's the reverse. So if we can be the brand and the partner that both helps democratize wellness as well as be partners for people to finally achieve what they ultimately want to, and cut through the clutter, cut through the noise and be that trusted voice, that's what we want to do. And Mindy, what is the business impact of these kinds of changes? Whether it's about your revenues The number of subscribers, how many people stay with the program. Well, the exciting part is our retention is at an all time high. We've had the highest subscriber growth this year in the company's history. Our goal is to continue to grow our subscriber base, continue to increase our retention, And continued to do that by adding as much value we can to people's experience to have them be sustainably healthy. And the more we can do that around the world, the more successful we're gonna be. I understand that you're targeting $ 2 billion in revenues by the end of 2020, which is a significant increase. From where the company is right now. What's gonna drive that growth? We said that 80 % of that is going to come from growth of our subscriber base to 5 million, as well as increased retention. Which is what we're on the path for. And about 20 % will then come from new products, experiences like our cruise, expansion of our B2B business and. Our expansion into emerging markets, and we've laid out the path for us to get there, and we feel confident in our trajectory. Let's talk a little bit about WW stock, because here we are at the Nasdaq, where you rang the opening bell. Over the summer your shares hit over $ 100, but they've been falling ever Ever since then down 70 %, so what do you have to do to get the stock moving higher again? Look, the best thing that we can do is perform. And if you look at the course of the year, we have the highest subscriber growth in each quarter than we've ever had. I think the thing that I continue to do is educate The market on the seasonality of our business, and what that looks like. And the more that we can educate, the more we can inform, and the more we can execute, that's what we need to do. Everybody Knows how the stocks skyrocketed when Oprah Winfrey joined the company as a board member and also as a spokesperson. Is there anything that she can do? Look, who wouldn't want Oprah as a board member? It's been a fantastic opportunity to partner with her on the strategies of what we're doing. As you see, she's very very much featured in our new campaign for everybody And she's been continuing to be an incredible spokesperson for this brand that she believes in and speaks about and she will continue to do so. As you know, Mindy, wellness is really ballooning everybody is trying to get into this business, how do you survive and thrive with so much competition You know, our biggest competition is people thinking they can get healthy themselves. And to your point, there's a lot of noise out there. And there's always something new. But, ultimately, what people want is something that works sustainably, and they want a partner and they want to be inspired. And they want the tools that are going to enable them to get healthy. And that's what we provide. [ BLANK_AUDIO ]

The New Skinny on WW: Healthy Eating Means Fatter Profits

Leadership

Dieting is out and wellness is the new mantra at Weight Watchers.