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Hungry for more sales, an embattled Metabolife International Inc. has spiffed up its packaging and launched a new advertising campaign to tout the latest of its ephedra-free products.
The $11 million "Me" campaign, which features Metabolife Complete, a regimen of pills containing the appetite suppressant hydroxycitric acid, was developed by NYCA. The Encinitas-based firm was awarded the account in January. Guy Peters, Metabolife's director of marketing, said the dietpill manufacturer did not have an agency of record before, but farmed out advertising on a project-by-project basis.
Michael Mark, a 26-year advertising industry veteran, who started NYCA about a year-and-a-half ago and serves as its president and chief executive officer, said the key to successfully marketing packaged goods is to understand the "consumer's mind-set" and make an "emotional connection" with them.
Mark, who worked on Ford Motor Co.'s "Quality Is Job I" campaign to improve the automaker's image in the mid1990s, knows from experience. He declined to discuss whether publicity surrounding Metabolife's legal battles has tarnished the San Diego-based company's reputation. But he acknowledged a similarity between the objectives of the two manufacturers.
"The parallel is that you want to make an emotional connection with the consumer," Mark said, adding that Ford accomplished that through TV ads featuring autoworkers on the assembly line and the message that they "took pride in their work."
"In this case, the most important thing with Metabolife is the consumer, and how to help them lose...