• by Tanya Gazdik , January 11, 2015

Weight loss company Medifast is capitalizing on the wave of health consciousness that the New Year always brings with a new campaign.

The effort from the Owings Mills, Md.-based manufacturer and provider of weight-loss and healthy living products and programs includes three national TV spots, social media, digital banner ads, new Web site design elements, direct mail and email marketing.

Themed "Your Whole World Gets Better," the creative mixes Medifast weight-loss success stories with humorous active living vignettes to illustrate the positive impact that achieving and maintaining a healthy weight can have on all aspects of living.

The campaign is from agency of record GKV. The TV spots were executed by Poertner Productions. All elements use the hashtag #worldgetsbetter.

Each of the 30-second spots offers a unique take on a Medifast success stories, says Brian Kagen, Medifast chief marketing officer.

The first spot, "Tennis," features Medifast customer Ruth Ann Somervell, who lost 62 pounds while enjoying tennis with her husband and is now also enjoying the great outfits she can wear.

The second spot, "Basketball," stars Medifast customer Johnny Taylor, who lost 27 pounds, which was just enough to enable him to give his young son a little competition on the basketball court.

In the the third spot, "Swing," viewers will find Medifast customer Cassandra Echevarria, who lost 36 pounds, whooping it up on a playground swing to the chagrin of three little girls waiting their turn.

"We've always believed strongly in demonstrating the effectiveness of our products and programs by highlighting real life Medifast customers in our commercials,” Kagen says in a release.

The company, founded in 1980, sells its products and programs through four distribution channels: the Web and national call centers, the Take Shape For Life personal health coach division, Medifast Weight Control Centers and a national network of physicians.

Medifast shareholders have been enjoying a solid stock price run over the past year, up more than 20%, according to analyst and investment adviser George Hanley. That favorable performance can be attributed in large part to generally better-than-expected profitability in 2014 a partial consequence of its focus on overhead spending restraint, especially in the area of marketing expenditures, he writes in a brief.

Medifast has been hurt by relatively weak consumer demand for its products, which management has partially blamed on the proliferation of low-cost, web-based activity monitors that have diverted potential customers away from traditional weight loss programs, Hanley says.