Every day, people living with obesity across the United States wake up and wonder, "What is wrong with me? Why can't I lose weight and keep it off?" Shame and blame become part of their everyday experience. They’re made to feel as if their weight is a personal flaw, a lack of willpower – so they try harder – only to be left feeling exhausted and defeated.
No one would say that people with heart disease or diabetes don't need medical care. But despite the fact that obesity is a gateway disease – driven by biology and genetics and linked to 60+ other serious health conditions – society’s solutions are still too often "eat less, move more." In the doctor’s office the disconnect can be real as well, as of the more than 40% of Americans living with obesity, only 10% seek help from a health care provider.
As obesity is one of the last stigmatized diseases, we recognized a core truth: Obesity is not just a healthcare condition – it’s a healthcare cause … a moral obligation that Novo Nordisk, with its long history in chronic disease and understanding of the patient experience, is uniquely equipped to address.
For the millions of people who live with obesity, our objective was clear. We needed to start a movement that, together with our partners, began to replace the toxic narrative around weight with new conversations that inspire empathy, connection, and a fresh understanding. Because by changing the conversation, we can, ultimately, change the trajectory of care.
For this movement to succeed, we needed to utilize our research to understand the mindsets of the people we were trying to reach. We expected some uncomfortable truths – like the significant discomfort around the word "obesity." When given various weight descriptors, "obese" and "obesity" received our lowest scores, with 65% of people tested seeing them as negative. We also uncovered that when obesity was mentioned in communications, viewers were extremely likely to tune out in the first ten seconds.
Additionally, we sought to understand how people living with obesity felt about their weight. We discovered a large divide in the community – an almost 50-50 split – between those who either didn't want to or didn't feel they could change and those who were more open to seeking care and comfort.
With such a personal topic, we learned that this movement had to be cloaked in clarity – and offer something unique. It had to compel and challenge viewers, while providing information that would inform their choices.
To spark a shift in how we talk about obesity, we also needed to consider the current cultural climate. While establishing new narratives, it was important to not set back any other initiatives, such as the Body Positivity Movement that focuses on celebrating the body at any size. To accomplish this balance, we determined that our tone would be empathetic, empowering, respectful, confident, strong, and educated.
The other challenge we had to overcome was breaking through the clutter. We knew that video was the best way to connect with our audience. Still, a traditional PSA simply wouldn't cut it, and we had to consider the reality that the word "obesity" is not palatable to our audience. So, we asked ourselves, "How do you spark a movement to change how we think about obesity without actually saying the word?"
Enter: It's Bigger Than Me. Simple yet empowering, It's Bigger Than Me captures the core message that obesity is bigger than anything we think it is – like willpower or a lack of personal responsibility – and naturally segues to the broader conversation around the real contributing factors to this disease. It also infers community – because if “it’s bigger than me,” that means it’s bigger than you too. We’re all in this together.
To ensure our message was well received, our approach was to entertain, then educate. We strategically teamed up with cultural icon Queen Latifah, to lead the charge and create not just a traditional talking head PSA, but a compelling original video series created around TV character archetypes that played to her acting prowess and provided a clear build to reveal her unique obesity story. The videos, including Body Talk: The self-hate sitcom, SIU: Shame Investigation unit, and Diagnosis Stigma, subliminally addressed the bias, self-hate and shame surrounding the disease (without actually referencing the word “obesity”) to intrigue viewers enough to visit the website where the full context of the videos was revealed – and they could search out additional information on It’s Bigger Than Me.
It's Bigger Than Me didn't just launch; it catapulted, sparking conversations across diverse channels immediately. Audiences were hooked. They appreciated how we told the story, and resonated with our core message – that obesity is not a character flaw but a manageable medical condition.
At launch, the fully integrated campaign surrounding the movement saturated airwaves across earned, owned and paid channels with impactful and compelling stories. In earned, the launch, along with Queen Latifah's media day, generated a frenzy of positive, high message pull-through coverage with 147 broadcast airings, 146 unique stories, 143B potential impressions, and a complete organic takeover of the Google news section. Our website saw a significant spike in traffic with over 315K sessions, 585K page views and a video completion rate of 59% on the campaign creative to date. Across social channels, our videos reached over 26M users, generating over 7M total engagements. Internally, the movement successfully drew in over 5.5K employees who rallied behind the mission and engaged with It's Bigger Than Me content.
And the discussions sparked about weight and obesity during launch are only gaining momentum, serving to de-stigmatize obesity through education and inspire those living with it to take action and ask for help. Our movement even traveled to Spain with a December launch, with more countries planning to integrate the movement into their PR initiatives near-term.
Now that we are beyond our inaugural year, we are planning the second phase of this movement to keep the conversation going in 2022 and beyond.
