MARKETING AND MEDIA : Weight-Loss Company Gets ‘Morph’ for Its Money in Winning Ad

An overweight woman in a blue suit sits on a sofa and talks about how unhappy she is with her body. Five seconds later, as she rises from the sofa, she magically drops to an average weight. “Now, this is what I call a waistline,” she says.

So goes an ad for the LiteLife weight-loss system. It was created by the Cunningham Group in Costa Mesa using “morphing” techniques pioneered by the movie “Terminator 2” and “Star Trek” spinoff “Deep Space Nine.”

The spot recently won a Telly award in the special effects category. The annual national competition recognizes good work in non-network and cable-TV commercials.

“You see a lot of people doing this kind of thing, but never with this sophistication,” said Gary Cunningham, principal of the Cunningham Group and former co-creative director for Cochrane Chase, Livingston, an Irvine ad agency that folded in 1991. The difficulty, he said, is in having people walk and talk as their physiques change, he said.