The Myth of Brand Control:
the case of Ozempic

Who controls a brand?  Is it the brand owner who designs and develops a product? Or the user who experiences it and shapes its meaning? 

The logic of value co-creation – which emphasises the interaction of the brand and the user – would suggest it is both of these. 

However, what happens when a brand escapes the meaning intended by the brand owner and users take the lead in determining its meaning. This is the case of Ozempic.

The users redefined the product

Ozempic was created by the Danish pharmaceutical company, Novo Nordisk, which has long specialised in diabetes, as a way to lower peoples’ blood sugar levels.  

However, as well as working on blood sugar, Ozempic also slows digestion and creates a feeling of fullness. This makes people want to eat less - an obvious way to treat over-weightness and obesity.

Rather than simply a medical treatment for diabetes, Ozempic quickly became a cultural phenomenon - a contributor to shaping social norms and collective behaviours - by providing a widely discussed solution to a difficult-to-solve problem (Holt 2004), that was shared on such social mediums as Reddit, TikTok and Instagram, where it garnered hundreds of millions of views.

A key driver of the take-up of the brand was the way it was embraced by influencers and celebrities independent of the company. Novo Nordisk did not initially go out and promote the brand as a weight-loss drug, but rather users wanted to share the success of their dieting journeys with each other.

The independence from commercial interests gave Ozempic an aura of authenticity.

Adaption to a new market environment 

This might seem a win-win. Diabetes sufferers and those with over-weight had something of benefit and Novo Nordisk had a commercial success with sales of Ozempic generating  14.0 billion dollars in revenues in 2023. However, tensions also emerged.

When Ozempic's brand meaning expanded beyond its intended scope, control shifted into the hands of external actors, who ignored features that might be relevant for usage, such as gastro-intestinal side-effects. Off-label use then attracted the attention of regulatory bodies and generated legal issues.

The brand's cultural visibility began to amplify both expectations and reputational risk. For a company such as Novo Nordisk, rooted in a world of long-term drug development aimed at diabetes sufferers, the speed of change in the take-up of weight-loss drugs, meant trying to adapt to a new competitive market environment.

Need to become good listeners and develop cultural sensitivity

The Ozempic case illustrates how brands can move beyond intentions to become a catalyst for the creation of shared narratives that create new usages and meanings. It shows how, in an increasingly diffuse media environment where experiences are widely shared, what a brand stands for is always changing.

The implication for the wider world of brands is that ideas of control are misplaced. Instead of trying to control meaning, brands have to become good listeners, to develop cultural sensitivity and to be responsive to emerging situations.

Brands still influence how people see the world and their role within it, but this is a process of exchange; a dialogue where meaning is developed together (Ind and Iglesias, 2020; Siano et al., 2022). 

Leave behind the myth of control

This change reconfigures the nature of the way brands compete. When brand meaning is fluid and changeable, it alters the capabilities needed to address rapidly changing environments and it modifies the way in which people evaluate the product and the organization.

This implies that managers have to work to steer the brand such that it remains coherent. It means simultaneously having the courage to let go of the brand and allow others to interpret and contribute it, while retaining responsibility for ensuring that brand meaning is not subverted or hijacked. It means recognising that brand control is a myth.

(The full article on Ozempic is published in Harvard Deusto Business Review: Markovic S., Ind., N and Micevski M. Ozempic: cuando el significado de marca trasciende su función original. September 2026.)

Reference:

• Holt D.B. (2004), How Brands Become Icons: The Principles of Cultural Branding, Harvard Business School Press.

• Iglesias, O., and Ind N. (2020) Towards a theory of conscientious brand co-creation: the next key challenge in brand management. Journal of Brand Management. 27 (6) 710-720

• Siano, A., Vollero, A., & Bertolini, A. (2022). From brand control to brand co-creation: An integrated framework of brand paradigms and emerging brand perspectives. Journal of Business Research, 152, 372-386

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