There's a new challenger to Weight Watchers and Nutrisystem in the New Year's resolutions dieting campaign war: Medifast.
Medifast — which like Nutrisystem does meal plans — has a clever TV campaign running right now that includes a heartbreaking ad featuring customer Tina Shelley, who appears as both her former (fat) self and her new (svelte) self.
That kind of before-and-after comparison isn't new of course, but the editing idea in this ad is, and it will blow you away: She is shown crying over how thin she has become on the Medifast plan during a conversation she is apparently having with herself. The two images of her before-and-after body, in the same shot, are a jarring comparison. They appear side-by-side, seamlessly, and her appearance is so different that at first it looks as if they're using two different actors.
Only in the final shot, when thin Tina whispers "Thank you" to her former self for trying the Medifast plan (and fat Tina weeps with relief), does the viewer realize, "wow, that's the same person." You have to have a heart of stone not to get a little choked up.
It turns out the conversation, and the two versions of Tina, are completely real and done without any special effects beyond careful editing. Watch the spot and then we'll explain how it was done.
We talked to Eric Sorensen, creative director at the ad agency Solve, to find out how the ad was made. It's a simple idea that was very carefully executed.
Filming began in January of last year with a group of Medifast customers who were willing to commit to the diet. They were told to imagine themselves after they had lost weight, and then told to ask themselves about it, what it was like to be thin. On the set, the actual conversation took place with a nutritionist.
Then, nine months later, the folks who had lost the most weight were asked back. "You have to shoot essentially the same commercial twice, and you have to have the camera in the exact same location at the beginning and at the end," Sorenson says. Even the position of the furniture was logged.
With newly thin Tina sitting in the other chair, she then responded to the questions she had asked herself back in January. "It wasn't very scripted at all," Sorenson says. In the first session, Tina had experienced "a pretty emotional day on the set," Sorenson says, which naturally became TV gold once she returned in fall looking like a million dollars.
"I bought a swimsuit this year for the first time in like eight years," Tina tells herself. The effect is pronounced because Tina appears to have received a much more flattering wardrobe, hair and makeup prep in the second take -- but it's still cool.
Notably, there's no CGI. It's just very, very clever editing.
Here's a "making of" video, so you can see how it was done.
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