Earlier this year, Novo Nordisk’s market capitalization surged above Elon Musk’s Tesla. Why? Results from a Phase I trial of a new amycretin pill indicate that a highly effective and less intrusive weight loss drug is on the way, providing an alternative to the injection-based Ozempic.
Interest in segmaglutides like Ozempic and WeGovy has exploded over the past 12 months, with prominent celebrities like Oprah and Amy Schumer admitting that they’ve relied on the shots to lose weight. Recent innovations in this category suggest that these weight loss drugs will only become more accessible, and therefore more mainstream. Semaglutides are poised to disrupt the food and beverage industry, altering consumer appetites, preferences, and aversions. According to Walmart’s U.S. CEO, an analysis of their grocery data revealed that customers taking Ozempic buy less food but spend more overall on other products.
It’s time for manufacturers to stop watching from a distance and begin harnessing the power of AI to understand and react to this movement.
Unpacking The Online Ozempic Conversation
Online conversation around semaglutides is growing, fast. The Ozempic hashtag has surpassed 1 billion views on TikTok, with millions of users sharing their criticisms of the drug, weight loss journeys, and celebrity speculations. And, as always, with volume comes noise. CPGs are struggling to parse through this ever-growing mountain of data to extract valuable consumer insights that can influence their product innovation decisions.
Traditional market research methods (surveys, panels, longitudinal studies, etc.) fall short when it comes to monitoring and responding to fast-growing consumer shifts like semaglutides. These research methods are slow, costly, and often rely on small sample sizes. The key to getting ahead of the semaglutide trend is tapping into consumer conversation at speed and at scale. You also want to remove as much bias as possible, extracting objective consumer insights in real time. CPGs need to think beyond their typical playbook.
Social listening tools, which enable users to insert keywords and track its mentions, aren’t much help here either. There are millions of posts that tell you nothing about the trajectory of the semaglutide trend or its impact on future consumer behavior. And Ozempic isn’t the only drug people are talking about. There are dozens of products and terms that consumers are using to discuss the weight loss craze. Building an accurate and complete taxonomy is not an easy task.
Thankfully, CPGs have another buzz-worthy technology at their disposal to help unpack and analyze the semaglutide trend: artificial intelligence.
Understanding Changing Consumer Behaviors
Most of the semaglutide conversation online is irrelevant to food and beverage manufacturers. CPGs are interested in what weight loss drug consumers have to say about the effects on their daily routines and appetites. These are the conversations that signal future changes in purchasing behavior, and that’s where AI-powered social data tools come in. By harnessing AI, CPGs can parse billions of consumer posts, map the semaglutide trend onto the biggest drivers of consumption, and identify associated symptoms.
For example, Black Swan Data’s latest analysis of 100 million semaglutide conversations revealed that consumers on appetite-suppressing drugs are experiencing aversions to meat and are therefore turning to protein shakes to meet their daily protein intake goals. Consumers are posting every day about their weight loss journeys, the exact symptoms they’re experiencing, and how they’re adjusting their diets to cope.
The insights and areas of interest are going to vary by company. Beverage manufacturers might be interested to know the effects of Ozempic on caffeine consumption, while vitamin manufacturers will want to know which supplements semaglutide users are using to mitigate side effects. The consumer posts are different, but the methodology remains the same. Leverage AI and big social data to unearth emerging need spaces, understand how your brand is being talked about in relation to semaglutides, and identify granular trends to activate.
Consumer behavior is ever-changing. It has always been challenging for CPGs to separate short-term fads from long-term consumer movements. But the semaglutide trend looks like it’s here to stay, with more twists and turns on the horizon. It’s time to inject some science into the product innovation process, harnessing AI to anticipate future consumer demand.
