Hi there,

Serena Williams didn’t just tell America she was on weight-loss meds. She went on The Today Show, dropped a line about GLP-1s, and casually admitted she’d been using them to lose 31 pounds after kids.

That’s the same category Hollywood whispers about at dinner parties but rarely says out loud because it feels like “cheating.” The kind of thing you’d assume celebs do but would never hear them admit.

Except Serena didn’t slip. She was already starring in Ro’s national campaign. The telehealth company had been prescribing her the meds. And, oh yeah, her husband Alexis Ohanian has been sitting on Ro’s board since 2018, with millions invested.

So was this authenticity or a family hustle? Depends on how cynical you are. Either way, it worked.

The Setup That Made This Inevitable

The backstory here feels almost too perfect, which tells you everything about how carefully calculated this entire campaign was from day one.

You've got Serena Williams, arguably the greatest tennis player who ever lived, with 23 Grand Slam titles and Olympic gold medals. After retiring in 2022, she had two kids and found herself dealing with something millions of women face but rarely discuss openly: she couldn't lose the baby weight despite what she described as "training five hours a day" and "doing everything at level 10."

So she tried GLP-1 medications, which worked exactly as advertised and helped her lose 31 pounds over eight months. The campaign shows images of her using the Ro app and injecting herself with the medication while she talks candidly about turning to GLP-1 treatment for help after pregnancy. Apparently even being one of the most disciplined athletes in human history doesn't make postpartum weight loss any easier.

@todayshow

EXCLUSIVE: Serena Williams has been taking a GLP-1 medication to help with her recent weight loss, she revealed for the first time in an e... See more

Why This Campaign Breaks Every Rule and Works Anyway

Most celebrity health endorsements crash and burn because they're built on complete bullshit. Perfect people selling perfect solutions to imperfect problems while pretending they never needed help with anything. Williams took the opposite approach.

The message was simple: "I'm literally one of the most disciplined athletes who ever lived, and this was still hard for me, so if I needed medical help, you probably need help too." She got specific about results in ways most celebrities would never dare—blood sugar levels normalized, joints feel lighter, knee problems improved. No shame, no apologies, no pretending this was anything other than medical intervention that worked.

Then she reframed the entire conversation: "You're not taking a shortcut, you're taking care of yourself, and that takes courage."

That's copywriting gold right there.

The Market She Decided to Dominate

Before we analyze strategy, let's talk about what market Williams actually entered, because this isn't some wellness startup selling supplements to yoga enthusiasts.

GLP-1 drugs hit $53 billion in 2024 and are growing at 17% annually, with one in eight Americans having tried them already. While celebrities like Oprah, Amy Schumer, and Elon Musk have mentioned taking GLP-1 medications, very few formal celebrity brand partnerships existed in this category.

Ro, valued at $7 billion with $1 billion in funding, positioned itself perfectly by building partnerships with both Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk instead of engaging in the public fights that damaged competitors like Hims & Hers. They offer the same medications at "only" $500 per month instead of $1,000+ through traditional channels.

Williams wasn't just endorsing a product, she was normalizing an entire category that desperately needed mainstream acceptance. The campaign launched across digital, broadcast, and out-of-home (including Times Square and the US Open) with timing that maximized both health season buzz and tennis media attention.

The immediate metrics were impressive: Ro's stock jumped 5 points, search interest for "Ro GLP-1" spiked 450%, and the announcement generated coverage across business, health, and entertainment media—reaching audiences that rarely intersect.

The Playbook (If You Can Call It That)

Here’s the temptation: to treat this as a formula other brands can copy. Get a famous face, find the right timing, go big.

But the Serena playbook only worked because of how the pieces fit:

• She was already a patient.

• The results were undeniable and specific.

• Her family was financially tied to the business.

• The stigma was ready to flip.

You can’t fake that alignment. You can’t brief it into existence.

Most brands try to reverse-engineer the “big reveal.” The smarter move is to find the people who already live your product and build from there.

The Part That’s Hard to Swallow

Of course there's an ugly side to this. We're talking about $6,000-a-year drugs being positioned as courage while people ration insulin. That's a hard pill to swallow - pun very much intended.

But strategically? This was a masterclass.

Serena was the one person who could reframe GLP-1s not as vanity, not as weakness, but as medical necessity. And the second she said it, millions of people felt licensed to see themselves the same way.

That's not endorsement. That's category creation.

What Smart Brands Are Already Doing

The companies that figured this out first aren't sitting around debating whether this is ethical or exploitative. They're too busy winning.

They're combing through customer data to find users who could become spokespeople. They're recruiting investors whose families might become authentic advocates. They're building partnerships around genuine usage instead of paying celebrities to pretend.

The Williams approach only works when there's real skin in the game - personal results, family money invested, or both. Without that, you're just another brand paying famous people to lie more convincingly than the last campaign.

Here's the reality: this is what modern brand building looks like now. Turning $6,000-a-year medical treatments into empowerment narratives while people argue about whether it's inspiration or exploitation.

The answer is probably both.

And the brands that moved first? They don't care which side of that debate you land on. While everyone else is still processing the ethics, they're capturing market share.

In a world where everyone assumes celebrities are lying, the ones willing to tell uncomfortable truths don't just get attention. They own entire categories.

That's not marketing genius. That's just understanding what vulnerability is actually worth.

Brand Wars: The Battle of Meditation Apps

Calm

Sleek, minimal, designed to look expensive. Opens to water rippling across a lake. Celebrity narrators reading bedtime stories - LeBron James, Matthew McConaughey, Harry Styles. Sleep Stories feature A-list talent recorded with orchestral scores. Daily Calm sessions feel like guided imagery more than meditation instruction. Everything is curated for Instagram screenshots. Became the first mental health app to run a Super Bowl ad. Valued at $2 billion by positioning mental health as premium lifestyle content.

Headspace

Bright orange and blue. Rounded fonts. Animated characters with circle heads that bob and breathe. Co-founder Andy Puddicombe (former Buddhist monk) narrates in a patient British accent. Courses structured like classes - Stress, Sleep, Focus - with progressive lessons. Animations show exactly what's happening in your body during breathing exercises. Marketing emphasizes science and research partnerships with universities. Positions meditation as a learnable skill, not a mystical experience. Feels accessible to skeptics who think meditation is "woo-woo."

Ad Vault: Nike

Dream Crazier (2019)

In February 2019, Nike aired a 90-second spot during the Oscars with Serena Williams narrating over footage of female athletes. The ad lists every dismissive label thrown at women in sports - dramatic, nuts, delusional, unhinged - then flips it: "So if they want to call you crazy, fine. Show them what crazy can do."

Watch it again and notice what's missing: no product shot until the very end. No swoosh. No athletes holding shoes or wearing branded gear. This isn't an ad that happens to have a message. It's a message that happens to be an ad.

The numbers were absurd. Within days it racked up 6 million YouTube views and 28 million on Twitter. Serena's Instagram post got over 41,000 comments. Six years later, people still reference it, still get emotional, still share it when women athletes face the same dismissive bullshit.

Dream Crazier worked because it was true. Every line Serena said actually happens. Every athlete shown had faced that dismissal. The ad didn't need to convince anyone of anything - it just named what everyone already knew.

Nike's credibility came from years of actually sponsoring women's sports when it wasn't trendy, actually designing products for female athletes, actually putting money behind the message. Most brands try to use purpose as differentiation. Nike used it as amplification for work they were already doing.

That's what separates great purpose-driven work from garbage. Nike wasn't trying to convince anyone they cared. They were speaking to people who already knew and needed to hear someone say it out loud.

Lento Vibes

A bit of random inspo from around the grounds:

• Funny Ads Fade While Effectiveness Rises: Despite the data showing humorous ads drive higher recall, creativity, and purchase intent, marketers are using them less. The reason? Production cost, oversaturation, and the flight to safer, formulaic content. 👉 Read the paradox

• CMOs Get AI Superpowers: AI is transforming the role of the CMO—from brand custodian to strategic growth architect. The best CMOs now lead AI adoption across marketing, tying it to insight, automation, and creativity. 👉 Explore the shift

• AI Startups Go Emotional: In a crowded landscape of generative AI tools, startups like OpenAI and Anthropic are embracing brand storytelling—human moments, cultural cues, emotional resonance—to break the tech noise. 👉 Discover the pivot

• Google Pixel S Turns Vanilla: Google’s new Pixel S campaign leans into plainness—“vanilla” as a creative codeword. In a sea of hyper-tech specs, the pitch is: simple, reliable, everyday utility. See the campaign

• Painted Handbags & London Grit: Coat Jacks turns heads at London Fashion Week with handbags painted like mini paint tins—decorated by creatives, messy, unapologetic, and full of expression. 👉 See the style stunt