Eli Lilly and the “Oprahmercial”.

Oprahmercial: an infomercial designed specifically for the financial betterment of Oprah Winfrey.

Monday’s one hour prime time special on GLP-1 weight loss drugs was a not-so-subtle attempt to put the thumb on the scale of the weight loss duopoly in favor of Eli Lilly and against Novo Nordisk, and it will succeed.

In the special, Oprah starts with the story of a young mid-central US woman, obese since childhood, now an adult, who uses Mounjaro/Zepbound. Her before/after result is startling, from 300 plus pounds to ideal weight, even using Hollywood standards. The woman has won the weight loss battle, so much so that she is no longer even categorized as diabetic.

Ms. Winfrey then proceeds to interview another mid-central USA farm family with a daughter who had gastric bypass surgery, somewhat unsuccessful, who was also on Victoza (an older generation Novo Nordisk product), did not quite lose what was intended and is now on the highest strength Novo product. The teenager looks great, but is not quite bone skinny, not to the level of the Eli Lilly patient. Oprah praises the mother of the teenager for paying the monthly scrip cost out of pocket, without insurance coverage, as a family sacrifice that must be done. This is a peer-pressure morality play designed to drive prescriptions on the basis of self-sacrifice (do without in some fashion, even deny yourself, but pay for those meds for the children).

Oprah breaks to the live studio audience, talks to a young woman of color fighting weight issues but not on a GLP-1 product, who has brought along her mother, further identifying not one, but two, largely unrepresented demographic target markets of big pharma to drive further sales. This also implies a marketing impetus to defray the cost of the expensive meds (hey, get your mom to help out financially if needed.)

The queen of talk-shows moves onto a highly scripted Q&A with two physicians, both accepting compensation from the pharmaceutical weight loss duopoly (indicated as such on a disclaimer prior to commercial).

After the final commercial break, Oprah goes in for the kill. She speaks to the two big pharma reps of the Eli Lilly/Novo Nordisk duopoly. Deliberately, Oprah identifies Eli Lilly as an American firm, and further differentiates Novo Nordisk as a Danish firm, providing the viewer with enough cues to set up a clash between a local hero vs European profiteer. The match-up is now nationalistic jingoism (USA, USA!). The Eli Lilly rep is thin, assured, polished, responses short and rehearsed. Novo-Nordisk, in a patently obvious marketing ticking of boxes, provides Oprah with a women of color, slightly larger boned vs the patients using Eli Lilly products, certainly not to the weight loss of Oprah Winfrey. The Novo-Nordisk rep is scripted to report that she has battled weight issues all her life, but we have no before/after video for comparison of the success in this battle.

Novo-Nordisk’s calculation was that through providing a diversity representative, one using the company’s products and, to Novo Nordisk’s way of thinking, similar enough to Oprah Winfrey that it will create some sort of commonality between Oprah, the rep and the viewership, it will clearly swing the needle to Novo. I consider it a major miscalculation. The weight loss contrast between the Novo Nordisk rep, assigned to represent the target market for GLP-1 based upon ethnicity, age, income profile and education (highly educated, high income, mid-30’s-early 40’s), against the Eli Lilly interviewee, misses the mark. To a viewer, they will assume that the Novo staffer obtains largely free scrips from her employer, has fought weight issues all her life, yet has still not lost the weight of Oprah, nor of the Eli Lilly patient starting the show. The Novo-Nordisk rep refers to it it a battle; the Eli Lilly patient doesn’t call it a battle, she’s no longer a diabetic, for her the battle is over. The viewing and studio audience will then look at the Eli Lilly guest sample provided for the show and the target market of GLP-1 based upon gender, ethnicity, age and income stratification moves to Eli Lilly.

Oprah Winfrey is the acknowledged master of the town hall media format. She had made a few billion over a 50 year career doing so.

In her 2015 strategy of buying an SEC filing position in shares of Weight Watchers, then announcing her decision to serve on the board of directors, pumping up the value of her stock personally to the tune of more than $400 million from purchase to peak, Oprah proved her ability to increase her net worth via stock promotion faster than with other media activities, on the basis of time and capital invested.

Per the GLP-1 show timeline, interviews with guests started in September. An entire group of production employees, physicians, media sponsors, and of course, Oprah herself, knew full well that her show could, if positively framed, have an impact on the prescription flow, and ultimately share price, of one or both players in the space. Given the vast capitalization differential between Eli Lilly vs Weight Watchers (one is a mega-cap and one was a small cap at the time of Oprah’s filing) Ms. Winfrey could have rolled over her entire $300 million + profit, on her WW play, into Eli Lilly and it wouldn’t have moved the needle, nor would it require an SEC filing. Under percentage requirements, she wouldn’t have to legally disclose a several hundred million dollar stock buy of Eli Lilly, although Oprah could do so voluntarily. Her staff could have purchased Eli Lilly shares, as could family of staff, friends of the family of the staff, as could the transportation drivers taking film crews to/from interview locations, as could caterers for Harpo Productions making kale salads for interviewees. None of this is insider trading, it is just good old-fashioned inferential connecting of the dots. Oprah’s agent was aware of the special, heck, almost the entirety of Hollywood was informed of the development long before the show aired.

Were I a cynical sort, jaded as to how media works to achieve an end, the entire one hour program was designed to contrast Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk from start to finish.

Oprah covered off the main points of stock promotion better than any analyst can. Ms. Winfrey went to some lengths, (not once, but twice) to differentiate the local US favorite against a foreign producer. She brushed aside the cost of the drugs and pushed the notion of familial and personal sacrifice to pay for scrips when insurance is unavailable, potentially driving sales for both companies. The Eli Lilly interviewee lost more weight, seemed considerably more self-assured and was quick to dismiss side effects as manageable for the result. Novo Nordisk interviewees also lost weight, but based on the informercial sample size, a bit less. The kill shot was a subtle, but apparent, distinction in weight management between the two reps of the competing GLP-1 producers themselves.

By medical standards, the special was fluff, superficial. As a master of media, Oprah knows this, so what was the prime time objective?

This represents a master-class in the handling of objections for brand marketing. Identify untapped markets, draw distinctions between your product and that of your competitor and leave it to the viewers to decide, what you have already chosen they will decide. Oprah is marketing GLP-1 to teens, to educated women, to middle and higher income women, to families and to ethnicities presently on the fence. The east coast and west coastal USA has excellent penetration of GLP-1 scrips and now Oprah is marketing to the heartland USA. She is favoring the American producer, without specifically saying so. Oprah doesn’t care if you have insurance or not, get prescriptions any way you can. Do without, sell your car, cash in your savings, just get GLP-1.

Had Oprah opted to roll the $300 million of WW profits into Eli Lilly in September, as the interviews commenced, she’d now be up a cool $115 million for her efforts to date, and this is just the beginning. We won’t know which equity she purchased, or even if she made a purchase, unless Oprah herself decides to report and that logically won’t be anytime soon.

Post special, Novo Nordisk shares were down slightly. Eli Lilly shares rose.

Hollywood types and celebrities, already presorted for success on the basis of their weight, then seeking to lose another 20ish-40ish pounds to stay in the game, they are fine using a Novo Nordisk product.

Based upon the Oprahmercial sample, this tv event was not designed to capture more celebrities, it is to move the needle for mass market adoption by those with, or without, health insurance. As to those in the real world, the show gently steers them towards an Eli Lilly product (lose the weight, no battle, USA! USA!). When referencing her use of the company supplied meds in battle terminology, the Novo Nordisk rep was unconvincing. The Eli Lilly rep didn’t need to say a thing. She sat there, thinner. Those in the capital markets business know exactly just what took place.