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Weight Watchers pushes unfortunate hashtag in the midst of World War 3 talk

'Nothing drops the pounds like rationing!'

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Claire Goforth

Tech

Posted on Jan 3, 2020   Updated on May 19, 2021, 6:57 pm CDT

Weight Watchers, which rebranded as WW in 2018, is probably regretting the timing of its latest Twitter promotion.

Last night, hoping to capitalize on New Year’s diet resolutions and increase awareness of its new brand, the company promoted #ThisIsMyWW.

Under ordinary circumstances, the milquetoast hashtag would’ve functioned as intended. But due to the U.S.’s killing of Iranian military leader Qassem Soleimani amid the escalating conflict between the U.S. and Iran, organically trending hashtags World War 3 and WWIII turned it from simple promotion to confusing marketing disaster.

The promotion was likely planned weeks, even months ago, by WW’s marketing team. Still, through no fault of its own, reactions to it were all over the place.

Plenty of people took the hashtag at face value. Some shared stories of weight loss successes credited to WW; others criticized the company.

Many commented on the hashtag’s poor timing and the volatile nature of social media, as well as the potential for ‘WW’ to mean any number of things that have nothing to do with dieting or world war, such as Wonder Woman or Willy Wonka, among others.

“I just saw #thisismyWW and thought people were showing off their white women,” said Imani Gandy.

The unfortunate coincidence of World War 3 and World War III trending at the same time as WW’s promotion inspired many cringes and quite a few wry chuckles.

“Not a great night for Weight Watchers to be rebranding #thisismyWW,” @cpatrickdood tweeted. “Weight Watchers must really be regretting the hashtag ‘#thisismyWW‘ right now,” added @MysticDistance. Alexia Bonatsos joked, “Nothing drops the pounds like rationing!”

Lots of people just assumed that #ThisIsMyWW was a world war reference.

https://twitter.com/diordieg0/status/1212991458904608769?s=20

https://twitter.com/bobbyfinger/status/1212941949956763648?s=20

https://twitter.com/boringwhitedad/status/1212931102375137280?s=20

https://twitter.com/juarezhoracio/status/1212943269996326912?s=20

https://twitter.com/TBBW1/status/1212652927485001728?s=20

https://twitter.com/lilskiespost/status/1212973450286919681?s=20

Social media marketing is a theater where timing is everything.

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*First Published: Jan 3, 2020, 10:10 am CST

Claire Goforth

Claire Goforth is an investigative reporter, lawyer, and the head of the Daily Dot's Hi-Res division. Her work has appeared in the Guardian, Al Jazeera, the Juvenile Justice Information Exchange, and more.

Claire Goforth