GLP-1 drug makers and telehealth sellers spent more than $1.1 billion on national TV ads in 2025, nearly one-fifth of all pharma linear TV spending, according to iSpot.tv data provided to eMarketer. The 25 moves below cover that spending, direct-to-consumer pricing, celebrity and Super Bowl campaigns, and the FDA actions that now limit what sellers can claim. The closing sections cover how GLP-1s reshaped wellness and diet brand communications.
This article describes marketing, not medical guidance. Figures are attributed to the source that reported them, and several come from the companies themselves.
How much did Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly spend to advertise GLP-1 drugs?
1. The $1.1 billion TV push
In 2025, Wegovy spent $501 million on national TV ads, Zepbound $284 million, Ozempic $200 million and Mounjaro $156 million, according to iSpot.tv data provided to eMarketer. That total of more than $1.1 billion was nearly one-fifth of pharma's almost $6 billion in linear TV spending.
2. Wegovy and the sports calendar
Wegovy took the top monthly spot in pharma TV ad spending in March 2025 and again in June 2025, according to iSpot.tv data shared with Fierce Pharma. Men's college basketball was its top program in March and NBA coverage in June, when its national TV spend reached $39.9 million.
3. Novo's return to advertising after the shortage
Novo Nordisk halted its ads during the drug shortage and ramped them up in 2025 as supply recovered, according to a Reuters report. MediaRadar estimates Novo spent $316 million on Wegovy and $169 million on Ozempic from January to September 2025, up 54% and 44%, and more than double Lilly's spending on rival drugs.
4. Lilly's Zepbound ramp
Eli Lilly spent about $131 million advertising Zepbound from January to September 2025, against $2 million in 2024, according to the same MediaRadar data reported by Reuters.
5. The head-to-head trial
Lilly released data in late 2024 showing patients on Zepbound lost 47% more weight than patients on Wegovy in a large head-to-head trial, according to Reuters. An eMarketer analyst said that edge is likely why Novo raised its advertising. IQVIA data shared by a Wall Street analyst showed Zepbound prescriptions passing Wegovy in 2025, giving Lilly about 60% of the US weight-loss drug market.
6. The Wegovy pill launch
Novo launched its once-daily Wegovy tablet in January 2026, according to law firm Spencer Fane. eMarketer reports the pill generated 1.3 million prescriptions and $355 million in first-quarter revenue and reached 2 million prescriptions by April 17, and says follow-on advertising for the pills is expected.
How did direct-to-consumer pricing become a marketing channel?
7. LillyDirect and Zepbound vials
Lilly sells single-dose Zepbound vials through its LillyDirect platform at a self-pay price it says is 50% below the list price of other GLP-1 obesity drugs, according to BioPharma Dive. The channel also helps Lilly counter telehealth companies selling compounded tirzepatide at lower prices.
8. LillyDirect powered by Walmart
Lilly and Walmart announced in 2025 that Zepbound vials could be picked up at Walmart's nearly 4,600 pharmacies by mid-November, with the lowest dose starting at $349 a month. Lilly said about 35% of new Zepbound prescriptions in the second quarter of 2025 were filled through LillyDirect.
9. The December 2025 vial price cut
Lilly cut the price of the 2.5 mg Zepbound vial to $299 a month and the 5 mg vial to $399 on December 1, 2025, according to Pharmaceutical Executive citing Lilly.
10. Novo's $349 cash price
As of mid-November 2025, Novo's cash price was $349 a month for all Wegovy doses and all but the 2 mg dose of Ozempic, down from $499, according to Fierce Pharma. New self-pay patients paid $199 for each of their first two months on the lowest two doses through March 31.
11. Novo takes the price to partners
Novo extended its cash prices beyond its NovoCare Pharmacy to partners including WeightWatchers, Costco and GoodRx, plus a digital savings card redeemable at more than 70,000 US pharmacies, according to Fierce Pharma. Lilly's new prices were available only through LillyDirect.
12. Walmart as the shared pickup point
eMarketer reports Walmart will soon be the only retail pharmacy where cash-paying customers can pick up both Novo's and Lilly's GLP-1 weight-loss drugs.
13. The administration deals and TrumpRx
Novo and Lilly each struck a pricing agreement with the Trump administration in November 2025, according to Fierce Pharma. TrumpRx launched on February 5, 2026, advertising lower-cost, FDA-approved GLP-1 options directly to patients, according to Pharmacy Times.
How did telehealth brands and celebrities market GLP-1s?
14. Hims & Hers "Sick of the System"
Hims & Hers became the first company to advertise GLP-1 weight-loss drugs during the Super Bowl, with a 60-second 2025 spot called "Sick of the System" that targeted the US healthcare system, according to Yahoo Lifestyle. The ad drew controversy.
15. The second Hims & Hers Super Bowl spot
For the second straight year, Hims & Hers ran a 60-second Super Bowl spot, per MediaPost. It carried the line "The wealth gap is a health gap" and promoted "weight loss treatments that can be microdosed," according to Yahoo Lifestyle.
16. Ro and Charles Barkley
Ro launched a GLP-1 campaign with NBA Hall of Famer Charles Barkley in April 2025, according to pharmaphorum. Fierce Pharma reports Barkley lost 45 pounds in seven months.
17. Ro and Serena Williams
In August 2025 Ro announced Serena Williams as brand ambassador in "a multi-year campaign to normalise the use of GLP-1 medications," with the tagline "It's not a shortcut, it's healthcare," according to pharmaphorum. Williams said she lost 31 pounds in eight months. Her husband, Alexis Ohanian, is an investor and board member at Ro. For more on this model, see EPR's guide to athlete public relations.
18. "Healthier on Ro" at Super Bowl LX
Ro made its Super Bowl debut in February 2026 with a 30-second Williams spot that launched its "Healthier on Ro" campaign, according to MediaPost. The campaign ran across linear and broadcast TV, paid social and out-of-home takeovers, and shifted the message from appearance to health benefits such as reduced joint stress and steady blood sugar.
19. Real patients in the same campaign
Ro's campaign also featured patients, including Minneapolis runner Hannah Nylander-Asplin, who lost 75 pounds over 18 months, and Atlanta couple Deanna and Mitchell Taylor, who together lost 41 pounds, according to Adweek.
20. Four GLP-1 sellers at Super Bowl LX
Hims & Hers, Ro, Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly all planned Super Bowl ads for their weight-loss drugs, according to Yahoo Lifestyle. Athletech News reports Novo used its spot to promote the Wegovy pill in a national campaign it said supports the Trump administration's health and nutrition efforts.
How did the FDA change what GLP-1 sellers can say?
21. The September 2025 letters
The FDA posted more than 100 letters to drugmakers and online prescribers in September 2025, including Hims & Hers, ordering them to stop "false and misleading" claims, according to CNBC coverage carried by Spectrum News. The agency told Hims to drop language comparing its compounded drugs to FDA-approved Wegovy.
22. The Oprah infomercial
The same batch included letters to the drug makers over a 2024 infomercial featuring Oprah Winfrey. Regulators said the 42-minute TV segment from Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk gave a "misleading impression" about the safety of the drugs, according to Spectrum News.
23. The $49 compounded pill that was pulled
Hims & Hers announced a $49 compounded semaglutide pill on February 5, 2026, according to Pharmacy Times. Reuters reports the FDA warned it could act against the product, and a trade report says Hims reversed the plan within two days.
24. Hims & Hers and Novo agree to a partnership
According to law firm Frier Levitt, Novo Nordisk and Hims & Hers announced a partnership under which Hims offers Novo's branded semaglutide products and stops most advertising of compounded GLP-1 drugs.
25. WeightWatchers drops compounded semaglutide
WeightWatchers began moving patients from compounded semaglutide to branded Wegovy on May 22, 2025, according to Pharmaceutical Technology. Its collaboration with Novo, which began July 1, lets it sell Wegovy at a discounted price.
How did GLP-1 drugs change wellness brand communications?
GLP-1 drugs changed the starting assumption of wellness marketing. Before semaglutide went mainstream, the implicit promise of a supplement, program, membership or meal plan was that the product did the work. After Ozempic, consumers increasingly assume a pharmaceutical baseline, with wellness as an optimization layer on top. Novo Nordisk's Ozempic, approved for diabetes in 2017, challenged the premise of the roughly $1.8 trillion wellness category that discipline, not chemistry, produces the body a buyer wants. The market for "help me lose weight" narrowed, and the market for "help me feel better while I'm losing weight" widened.
What did not change is demand for credibility, community and personalization. Brands built around measurement and optimization, such as Levels Health and Function Health, were already positioned away from weight-loss outcomes. Brands whose messaging rested on outcomes such as weight loss and body change had to reposition the core value proposition, not just update ad copy.
For AI visibility, the effect is direct. AI engines now surface GLP-1 drugs in response to a large share of weight-loss and body-composition queries, so brands that do not address the GLP-1 context, alongside or in contrast to the medication, lose citation share to clinical and pharmaceutical content they cannot control. See EPR's wellness PR guide for the wider category.
How has diet PR changed after Ozempic?
Three structural shifts changed diet communications.
- The medical frame won. Weight management was a consumer-lifestyle category and now has a pharmaceutical center of gravity. Trade press, business press and AI answer engines retrieve GLP-1 coverage first when a buyer researches weight loss.
- The buyer research funnel moved. A consumer who once searched "best diet program" now asks ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini or Google AI Overviews, and the engines blend medication coverage from outlets such as WSJ, Bloomberg and Reuters with diet-brand commentary.
- The efficacy conversation reset. A category used to arguing about sustainable weight loss over twelve months now sits beside drugs that produced double-digit weight loss in clinical trials.
Which communications moves work for diet brands now?
- Position honestly alongside the medication class: acknowledge it, define the brand's role, and name real trade-offs such as cost, side effects and weight regain after stopping.
- Own the sustainability and maintenance question, which trade press now covers heavily.
- Build a holistic-health narrative with named dietitians, endocrinologists and behavioral scientists.
- Publish real outcomes with disclosed sample sizes and independent review instead of before-and-after content.
- Pursue business-press coverage, such as employer contracts, insurance coverage and partnerships, not just lifestyle press.
- Partner with credentialed practitioners instead of lifestyle influencers with no health background.
- Address safety and tolerability directly, and personalize programs in ways the brand can demonstrate.
- Play the long game on Citation Share, because the coverage a brand earns today sets its position in AI answers a year from now.
What should diet brands avoid?
- Attacking GLP-1 drugs directly, which reads as defensive to audiences and to AI engines.
- Running before-and-after campaigns without independently reviewed data.
- Assuming trade press will cover the brand the way it did in 2019.
What do these GLP-1 campaigns have in common?
Each move tied advertising to a way to buy the drug: a TV spot that points to a prescription path, a self-pay price, a retail pickup option or a telehealth sign-up. The FDA actions show the limit. Claims that a compounded product matches an approved one, or that a TV segment downplays risks, drew regulatory letters. For the category view, see EPR's healthcare PR reference, the GLP-1 communications brief, and Novo Nordisk vs Eli Lilly.
