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As Jenny Craig centres began to spread throughout America and the rest of the world, Craig began to notice an interesting phenomenon. “The markets where we had the most competition were our best markets,” she says. “I realized why. There was greater awareness of the risks of obesity and a major reason is the advertising we and all the other companies were doing.”

From day one, marketing was made a priority in the Jenny Craig budget. Thanks to their previous experience with sport gyms and salons, both Craig and her husband knew that advertising their business and making people aware of it would be one of the most important factors behind their success. Indeed, especially as the industry grew as a whole, Jenny Craig would have to make itself stand out in the crowd, and promotion was the way to do that.

In the company’s early years, Craig made sure that exactly ten percent of sales was directed back into commercial advertising each and every year. Individual franchises were also expected to spend ten percent of sales, or at least $1,000 a week, on local advertising for their own centres.

But it was not just the amount of money that Craig poured into her marketing that made it so successful. It was the marketing material itself and the wide array of media she took advantage of to get her message across. The company’s television commercials would become synonymous with celebrity endorsement, featuring such actors as Elliot Gould and Susan Ruttan, both of whom had lost weight through the Jenny Craig program.

Using celebrities to endorse her program was not Craig’s only trick. All of the ads would also run toll-free telephone numbers across the screen to connect them to Jenny Craig. The numbers did not just direct callers to a central Jenny Craig call centre, however. Instead, they automatically connected callers to the Jenny Craig centre that was the closest to them. In 1991, Craig also launched a direct mail campaign to all of her current and past clients.

Craig’s husband, Sid, also proved to be one of the company’s greatest secrets of success. It was his idea to place live television ads on Australia’s top talent show, “New Faces.” He also brought the company much publicity during one televised international cricket match, where cameras picked up on a sign in the crowd directed at the captain of the English team that read: “See Jenny Craig. Quick.”

Craig proved that while marketing should be made a key part of a company’s budget, it did not have to cost millions. Indeed, even in her very first days, when she had no clients and could not afford to pay celebrities to come on board, Craig was resourceful and became the company’s spokesperson herself. “Of course, we didn't have success stories the first day we opened,” says Craig.” So, I said, well, I'll go out there and do it. And I did, and it seemed to be working so I just continued to do it.”

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