Ubiquitous Ozempic Jingle Was Almost By New Kids On The Block Instead Of Pilot

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When Ozempic, the diabetes drug turned questionable weight loss phenomenon, first hit the market in 2018, its ubiquitous advertisements featured a jingle based on Pilot’s 1974 hit “Magic,” with the lyrics changed to “Oh, oh, oh, Ozempic.” In a recent New York Times feature about the jingle, former Novo Nordisk executive Jeremy Shepler, who helped launch the drug in the US, revealed that New Kids On The Block’s “You Got It (The Right Stuff)” (which also features an “oh oh” hook) was almost used instead.

“The first song I came up with was by New Kids On The Block, the one that goes ‘Oh oh oh oh oh,’” Shepler told the Times. “But New Kids was a bit too young. The average age of our patient was between 50 and 55. Then it came to me: ‘Oh, oh, oh, it’s magic.’”

For the initial run of Ozempic commercials, the company hired a commercial music production company to record a version of the song. More recently, they recruited David Paton — the Pilot frontman who co-wrote the song with his late bandmate Billy Lyall — to re-record the hook, with the Ozempic tagline, at the famed Abbey Road studios in London. “I was delighted!” Paton responded when asked if he minded being associated with Ozempic. “I’m a songwriter. I want to sell my music. A lot of people don’t know the name Pilot, but they know the Ozempic song.”