Ad Store Personalizes E-Diet’s Meal Plans

ATLANTA The Ad Store broke its first work for e-diets yesterday, the client said.

The New York agency’s 30-second TV spot, created from existing footage and new graphics and computer animation, began playing on Lifetime, HGTV, TLC, the Food Network, We and Oxygen through Jan. 30.

E-diet said its 2004 marketing budget is in excess of last year’s $23 million spend. The lion’s share, however, does not go to television, but to online partners Microsoft, Yahoo! and Time Warner’s AOL.

Media buying is handled by Gotham in New York. Spending for the two-week cable TV campaign is not disclosed.

The online dieting service spent $500,000 in measured media in 2002, dropping to $100,000 for the first three quarters of 2003, per Nielson Monitor-Plus.

Client vice president of brand management Harriet Gallu said she wanted a campaign to focus on the personalization of the meal plans the Deerfield Beach, Fla.-based Web site offers its 200,000 subscribers.

“We wanted [the ad] to define what [our tagline] “Your diet. Your way” means to them,” Gallu said.

E-diet, in partnership with the Zone diet, Shape Up, the Atkins Diet and Perricone, offers weight-loss and nutrition-based diets to subscribers.