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Rhyan White Dr. Dietel-McLaughlin Multimedia Writing and Rhetoric 2 October 2012 Gaining Subscribers with Weight Loss: A Rhetorical Analysis of Weight Loss Websites

321Happy New Years! Popping champagne bottles, exploding fireworks and tons of colored confetti are staples of the New Years celebration. People crowd around the TV awaiting the final seconds to tick down and cheer for one more year passed and one more upcoming one. New Years is a time of celebration; to celebrate new beginnings, new resolutions, and weight loss? At the strike of midnight our cheers and hugs celebrating the New Year are accompanied by weight loss companys ads bombarding the television screen urging us to join their program and lose weight like Amy, or Becky, or Jack. This placement is not just a coincidence; in Rhetorical Situation Lloyd Bitzer explains just how uncoincidental this placement is stating, a work is rhetorical because it is a response to a situation of a certain kind (4). The companies are responding to many resolutions made to lose weight. Making a resolution to lose weight is very common during the New Years and knowing this weight loss companies utilize the rhetorical situation, as explained by Bitzer, of New Years and making resolutions of losing weight to persuade individuals to consume their product. Weight loss companies have become more popular as the countrys weight increases and more people are becoming more overweight and obese. Their success depends solely on the amount of participants in their respective programs. Most of this relies on ad, whether on billboards or on television, but with the new technology of DVRs it is very easy to overlook

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these ads. Weight loss companies have in turn taken another approach by using the internet as a means of communicating their programs. To appeal to the new interests of social networking these websites have also taken a path that includes making a weight loss profile. These new methods are surely attracting more customers, and it is visible to see that through the expansion and popularity of the two weight loss companies Jenny Craig and Weightwatchers. Weightwatchers and Jenny Craig are suspects to using the New Years holiday to their advantage to attract customers, but to ensure that the rhetorical situations are used to their maximum advantage these weight loss companies must establish strong rhetorical strategies that can hold their own once the holiday ends. The rhetorical strategies implemented by both of the companies proves to be effective due to their large number of clients, however, the differences in the aesthetics of their websites reveal that Weightwatchers is targeting an audience that appeals to the glitz and glamour of celebrities while Jenny Craig is targeting an audience that represents the everyday person. Losing weight is a hard task, and losing weight alone is even harder. Both companies use this idea to their advantage by featuring spokespersons to relate to, or to lose weight with. Weightwatchers and Jenny Craig both use celebrities and their status to raise their number of clientele, but the emphasis or dependability of this spokesperson varies between the two companies. The use of celebrities allows for the company to adopt the fan group supporting the celebrity to also support the product that they are representing. This also appeals to a desire within people to have status and to have fame. Upon looking at the Weightwatchers website a full screen photo of Jennifer Hudson, an American idol winner, after her Weightwatchers transformation greets you with a smile and open arms. Jennifer Hudson is an icon in the singing industry. Her win on the third season of

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American Idol made her a well-known figure and well liked because of her sweet and innocent demeanor on the show. Her loyal fans watched her weight loss with Weightwatchers and that has inspired her fans and others who knew her story to join the weight loss craze, so they too could be like Jennifer Hudson. The specific selection of Jennifer Hudson encourages an interest in a younger or African American crowd as she is popular figure and role model in both of those groups. The placement of her picture on the website just shows how important the company views her as a rhetorical method of attracting a specific type of customer, which shows that Weightwatchers hopes to use her status to gain subscribers as well. Jenny Craig, however, used a different approach when choosing which type of people to include on their website. Jenny Craig also uses celebrity spokesperson to promote their company, but their emphasis is not as strong as with Weightwatchers. Mariah Carey, an even bigger celebrity icon, represents Jenny Craig, but on the website the only mention of her is at the bottom of the web page in a very small font. The reasoning for this is that Jenny Craig tends to focus more on the everyday person, so instead of having an overwhelming photo of a celebrity first on the page, they have a photo of Jennifer Torrance, a working mother of five. Using a normal person allows the viewers to relate more to the product and allows it to be more realistic in their eyes. Also choosing to use a this photo shows how easily implemented their system is into the daily life of a working parent. The photo shows her kids in it as well and is a more realistic representation of the majority of the people that will be subscribing to this program, and this technique of featuring children allows Jenny Craig to appeal to a softer and even maternal side found in everyday women and people. The easiest and most obvious rhetorical technique that the two companies use on their websites is the actual text that appears on the website. Text is a direct way of getting a message

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across to viewers. The company has the ability to share anything that they desire without having to worry about a certain interpretation coming across because the words are to the point and symbolize exactly what they are intending to. This way of communicating, as stated by James Herrick in The History and Theory of Rhetoric, is a way of using language through written words and spoken word as a symbol(5). The symbol that the two companies are trying to get across is that their product or plan is the best option and that people should sign up through their company. This technique of using text, however, is not that blunt and depending on the terminology used on the website it can attract different users as it does in Jenny Craig and Weightwatchers. Believe because it works is the first piece of text you see on the Weightwatchers website. It is the biggest, in the center of the webpage, and because it is white and its background is black it creates a great amount of contrast causing the viewers eyes to draw directly to it upon opening the webpage. These words serve as an inspiration to convince subscribers that by using this plan it is possible to lose weight. This word choice is a powerful one because it uses the rhetorical strategy of appeals. Herrick defines appeals as, symbolic strategies that aim either to elicit an emotion or to engage the audiences loyalties or commitments (13). The strategy that this phrase proposes is an appeal to ones emotions. It attempts to make a potential subscriber hopeful, and especially when paired with a photo of someone who has made the weight loss transformation, or a celebrity because it implies that if you believe you can look like a celebrity or have the status of a celebrity. The type of person that this phrasing attracts is similar to the type of person who would be likely to join any weight loss program, but the terminology that distinguishes Weightwatchers from other companies, and especially Jenny Craig, is the language is its use of statistics and rankings. This is very specific to Weightwatchers because it is

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impossible for another company to have its rankings or statistics. The website states that a million users have lost weight using the program, despite whether or not the fact is true, it still provides viewers with a sense of security and reassurance. Knowing that other people have been successful with the program offers the viewers confidence in the program and makes it more likely for them to subscribe. Also, Weightwatchers mentions on its website that it was ranked number one best diet in US News and World Report. As a potential subscriber mentioning this ranking shows them that the program works, but it also shows status, and similarly to the effect that showing celebrities has this ranking appeals to peoples desire for status and fame which is a different audience than Jenny Craig seems to attract with their use of language. Jenny Craigs slogan is more subtle than the large glamorous slogan presented by Weightwatchers. Feel like new. Feel like you, grazes the top of Jenny Craigs webpage in a soft sky blue. This phrase contradicts the slogan for Weightwatchers because it suggests that you should thrive to be yourself, but a thinner version of yourself. By not urging yourself to be someone that maybe unattainable it boosts the users confidence, which is the whole reason people join these programs to feel comfortable about themselves. This also uses an appeal to ones emotions. It reassures potential subscribers that it is ok to not look like a celebrity because with that program they could look great just as themselves. The text that Jenny Craig uses also compliments their tendency of appealing to the everyday individual. Jenny Craig repeatedly shows text mentioning the price of subscribing to their company. For example, the homepage includes text that mentions summer deals, or buy one moth get one free. Jenny Craig understands that the everyday person may have a limited budget and that it very noticeable with the text that it chooses to include about the pricing of the program.

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The audiences that each company is attracting through their use of rhetoric are very different, and people may argue about the use of celebrities in both of the companys websites. Some may argue that Weightwatchers is not as dependent on using celebrity popularity to gain popularity in their program. Weightwatchers is not completely celebrity centered. Their use of statistic and rankings as a rhetorical tactic is a very strong appeal as well. Appealing to logic provides viewers with a sense of trust and is very persuasive; however their use of celebrities cannot be overlooked. The celebrities attract the viewers attention and when dealing with weight loss it allows the potential subscribers to strive to be like them. Concerning Jenny Craig one would say that they do not use celebrities as much to promote their product. The website is not as flashy as the Weightwatchers website, and does not center their website on the inclusion of celebrities, but it is not nonexistent. A list of female celebrity spokespersons are at the bottom of the page with a link to their story with the program. This small mention of the celebrities allows the focus to be on the actual subscribers instead of the celebrities. Through analyzing the website it is apparent that there is a focus on the everyday person, but having at least link about the celebrities on the website still allows that access to increase popularity in their program. Weight loss companies have moved from the gyms to the internet, and subscribers have moved with them. In the article Identity Management in Cyberspace by J. R. Suler he talks about changing a negative personality. He states, They are trying to transform the negative feature of their identity into a positive one, or perhaps change their attitude about that feature. With weight loss programs moving to the internet people are literally using the internet to change a negative identity into a positive one. The internet provides a community for people to support each other with weight loss and creating a new identity no matter what type of person or people are in that community. The website designers of the Weightwatchers and Jenny Craig websites

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have targeted these specific types of people to be in their communities with the rhetorical strategies that they chose to implement on their websites. The simple addition of specific photographs or phrases has affected the type of people that show interest in these weight loss programs websites. Whether the stay at home mom or the single business woman weight loss companies have integrated their system and their program very well into the new cyber world and through their rhetoric they have successfully brought their loyal customer and now their new customers with them.

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Works Cited Bitzer, Lloyd F. "The Rhetorical Situation." Philosophy and Rhetoric 1.1 (1968): 1-14. JSTOR. Penn State University Press. Web. 24 Sept. 2011. <www.jstor.org/stable/40236733>. Herrick, James A. The History and Theory of Rhetoric: An Introduction. 2nd ed. Boston: Allyn and Beacon, 2001. Print. Suler, J. R. "Psychology of Cyberspace - Identity Management in Cyberspace." Psychology of Cyberspace - Identity Management in Cyberspace. N.p., May 1996. Web. 05 Oct. 2012. <http://users.rider.edu/~suler/psycyber/identitymanage.html>.