• Ad Age, Thursday, December 15, 2005 12:15 PM

NutriSystem wants men to get skinny and is going to spend more marketing dollars next year to help them. In 2005 the company spent $35 million and now says it will add a short-form direct response TV, a test of longer-form infomercials and an expansion of its NutriSystem for Men program. Tom Connerty, NutriSystem's chief marketing officer, said NutriSystem has had a men's program for two years but that it only accounts for 15 percent to 20 percent of sales, because "we haven't aggressively gone after them the way we have to women."

That will change in the first quarter, with a newly revamped men's Web site, commercials specifically aimed at men and expanded efforts in male-targeted print publications. The diet business, usually slow over the summer and fall season, has soared this year, and NutriSystem has done well. Even though the company is only about one-fifth the size of leader Weight Watchers, it tripled revenue last year to $200 million, according to researcher Marketdata Enterprises. In targeting men, the creative strategy will take a slightly different approach, Connerty said. "With men you can talk to them a little more bluntly, a little less about hand-holding, encouragement and concern and more about 'these are the results you're going to get,'" he said.

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