WeightWatchers 2015 Annual Report Download - page 7

customers in their weight management efforts. We have focused on selling products that drive recurring
purchases. Our products are designed to be high quality, offer benefits related to the Weight Watchers program
and be easy to merchandise.
We sell our products through our meetings business, online and to our franchisees. Excluding sales to or by
our franchisees, in fiscal 2015, sales of proprietary products in our meetings business and online represented
approximately 11.3% of our revenues. We seek to grow our product sales per attendee in our meetings business
by continuing to optimize our product offerings by updating existing products, selectively introducing new
products and sharing best practices across geographies. In fiscal 2015, we launched our ecommerce platform at
shop.weightwatchers.com, making the site available to all consumers, including non-members and non-
subscribers.
Licensing and Endorsements
We license the Weight Watchers brand and our other intellectual property in certain categories of food,
including frozen foods and baked goods, among others, and other relevant consumer products, including scales.
We also endorse carefully selected branded consumer products. By partnering with carefully selected companies
in categories relevant and helpful to weight-conscious consumers, we have created a highly profitable licensing
business as well as a powerful vehicle to reinforce the Weight Watchers brand in the minds of our target
consumers.
We typically partner in our licensing and endorsement arrangements with third parties that excel at new
product development and have strong marketing and sales expertise, manufacturing and distribution capabilities,
financial strength, prior performance in previous licensing and endorsement deals and senior management
committed to building the Weight Watchers brand. In connection with our acquisition from the H.J. Heinz
Company, or Heinz, in September 1999, Heinz received a perpetual royalty-free license to continue using our
brand in its core food categories. We plan to continue to choose our licensing and endorsement partners carefully
after identifying and prioritizing product categories that enhance the Weight Watchers brand and have long-term
growth potential.
Our licensing and endorsement arrangements give us access to weight-conscious consumers through
products sold at retail and increase the awareness of our brand. We continue to believe there are significant
opportunities both in the United States and internationally to take advantage of the strength of the Weight
Watchers brand and our other intellectual property through additional licensing and endorsement arrangements.
Publishing
Weight Watchers magazines are published in most of our major markets. In the United States, Weight
Watchers Magazine is an important branded marketing platform that continues to show strong circulation and
advertiser acceptance. As of fall 2015, our US magazine had a readership of over seven million, according to
GfK Mediamark Research and Intelligence, LLC, an industry tracking service. We also issue other publications,
such as cookbooks and food and restaurant guides with SmartPoints values, which complement our program.
At-Work Meetings and Healthcare
As healthcare costs continue to be a significant concern on the minds of employers and their employees, we
believe that our broad range of services and products uniquely positions us to serve the corporate market and help
companies reduce their healthcare costs and improve the overall well-being of their employees. Our strategy is
focused on leveraging our organizational capability to serve companies of every size and type by offering
convenient and flexible weight-loss solutions that include meetings at the workplace, local community meetings
and access to Weight Watchers Online.
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