World of Wellness

Brands must re-evaluate their roles in the diverse wellness ecosystem, ensuring that they’re contributing to a better quality of life for consumers.

background

When we say it’s a “World” of Wellness, we’re not just being alliterative (although we’re certainly not avoiding it). We’re referring to a full-on ecosystem of wellness with new points of care that are becoming increasingly ubiquitous and accessible for all consumers. Driven by a female-fronted emphasis on holistic health, the focus has evolved from treatment to control to empowerment about directing one’s own health. It follows that the goal of this ecosystem has grown beyond perfunctory illness-avoidance to embracing wellness as a crucial component of a high quality of life: the physical complement to social and mental well-being. But the biggest shift from the old world of health is that consumers have supplanted their doctors as the center of this universe. Now, the doctor is just one of many inputs in the system, along with lifestyle, food, pharmacists, and peers, all of which are simultaneously growing in importance and influence. With consumers pursuing wellness on their own, brands are no longer tasked with informing them about the need for living better. Instead, their role is to encourage and enable these tendencies.

market manifestations

• mPowered: Residents in the World of Wellness wield an extensive arsenal of DIY diagnostic tools that enable them to actively manage their own longevity. Of course, you can’t mention health and wellness without referencing the Boomers’ disproportionate impact on this category, so it’s especially noteworthy that they’re increasingly comfortable with using mobile apps and devices to monitor their own health. But one device that’s appealed to consumers of all ages is the “Up” from Jawbone, a beautifully designed wristband that monitors users’ eating, sleeping, and activity patterns. An accompanying smartphone app crunches these numbers, then provides little nudges to help the user live healthier, such as encouraging movement if a person has been stationary for too long.
• Doctor Up the Store: Retailers in a variety of channels have an opportunity to take a whole-store approach to delivering health and wellness, drawing on existing offerings ranging from pharmacies to fresh food areas. Whole Foods is taking this approach with their new Wellness Clubs, which combine doctor-led classes, social suppers, and skill-building workshops to help consumers reorganize their lives around healthful choices (and yes, Whole Foods is most definitely the Guru here). Meanwhile, for patients with ongoing health conditions, CVS’s new Monitoring Made Easy adds a layer of oversight between appointments with their primary care providers. CVS offers in-store exams, lab tests, and a chat with a nurse practitioner, all of which is reported back to the PCP.

implications

In this World of Wellness, ePatients are more than just plugged in. They’re empowered, engaged, equipped, and enabled when it comes to their personal wellness. And increasingly, they’re everywhere, with the Hartman Group claiming that there’s no longer a “wellness” consumer since everyone falls somewhere on the spectrum between the cutting-edge core and the ever-growing “periphery.” But for most marketers, the opportunity lies in the middle ground, where most consumers want to evaluate wellness solutions and messaging through the filters of expertise, enjoyment, and (personal) experience. In the latter case, consumers are now keenly aware of the catastrophic financial consequences of serious illnesses (even for middle class families), reshaping the conversation about wellness as a long-term investment in one’s own future. In that case, can your brand find a legitimate role in diversifying consumers’ health portfolios?