Health and Wellness Marketing Trends Part 1 with Heidi Moon of the Global Wellness Institute
February 14, 2024
2023 proposed the largest shakeup of the wellness industry that researchers have seen in the past 20 years, according to Heidi Moon, Communications Strategist of the Global Wellness Summit/Institute. In Part 1 of our podcast with Heidi, we cover these ground-breaking wellness trends, their effects on consumers and how brands can align themselves with the wellness movement. From more expensive, high-tech approaches to wellness to more emotional and rooted solutions and everything in between, here’s what your brand needs to know about the wellness world to stay ahead this year.
[00:00:00] Rochelle Reiter: This is The 19, a 19 minute or less podcast that brings you marketing insights aimed at improving lives. Presented by Orange Label, the leading response marketing agency for wellness brands that grow when their customers do.
[00:00:16] Rochelle Reiter: Hello and welcome to The 19. I’m Rochelle Reiter president of Orange Label. Over the last five years, the concept of wellness has gained traction and the attention of leading brands across the world. The Global Wellness Summit is no stranger to wellness, and its team has been releasing an annual trends report for over 20 years. Today, we have the absolute pleasure of sitting down with Heidi Moon, Communication strategist for the Global Wellness Summit and Global Wellness Institute. Dive into how your brand can tap into the wellness market and align yourself with the wellness movement to drive both company and audience growth in this episode.
[00:00:57] Rochelle Reiter: Hi Heidi. How you doing today? I.
[00:01:04] Heidi Moon: Hi Rochelle! So great to be here.
[00:01:05] Rochelle Reiter: Thanks for being on the 19.
[00:01:08] Heidi Moon: I’m happy to be here.
[00:01:09] Rochelle Reiter: So you’re the communication strategist for the Global Wellness Summit and the Global Wellness Institute. Can you explain the difference between the two entities for our listeners?
[00:01:18] Heidi Moon: Yes, absolutely. As often they’re, they’re kind of confused. Global Wellness Summit was founded, over 18 years ago. I. And modeled after the World Economic Forum in Davos. The founder, Susie Ellis, had been to Davos and realized, you know, we really need something of that global level for leaders across. The wellness industry around the world to deal with the bigger questions facing our industry. And so that’s the Global Wellness Summit. It’s, it’s centered around one main gathering. It’s a four day gathering, different places throughout the world. our 18th one coming up in November is in St. Andrew’s, Scotland. We’re so excited.
[00:02:01] Rochelle Reiter: Oh my gosh. I’d love to go to that.
[00:02:04] Heidi Moon: I Isn’t that exciting. the, Global Wellness Institute was founded a few years later because as we were having those gatherings, the founder realized we really need a set of unbiased, global, extensive data on the 11 sectors of the wellness industry. And this institute actually defined what, in fact, those sectors were. And it started reporting. Now it’s every year on, the global wellness economy. So it’s the most cited, you know, kind of heavily reliable, set of reports and, and it was really important to, the founder of that to keep all of the research free. So the goal is to empower wellness worldwide. There’s a bunch of other initiatives from our Wellness Moonshot to Geography of Wellness. have a relationship with the BBC on a new, digital series. but it’s really meant to just broaden access to information on the wellness economy. And that’s a nonprofit, organization, separate but related to the summit.
[00:03:09] Rochelle Reiter: That’s amazing. Thanks for clarifying. So you’ve just released some trends for 2024. What are the most significant wellness trends you’ve observed in the past year and how are they shaping consumer expectations in your opinion?
[00:03:22] Heidi Moon: Oh, well this is a big one because in the 20 years that this group has been watching the trends. 2023 posed the biggest shakeup that we’ve seen over the past two decades. and, and that’s the, the underlying kinda wave that we’re seeing in the wellness industry is a polarization, not unlike that, that we see in other parts of our society, today, but with…
[00:03:49] Rochelle Reiter: Right.
[00:03:50] Heidi Moon: You know, income gaps and mindset gaps and, promulgating throughout society. We’re seeing the wellness industry itself polarized into two areas that we’re kind of calling hardcare and softcare. Hardcare we’re looking at higher tech, hyper medical, even more expensive wellness services than you could ever dream of, couple years ago. And softcare where people are really reacting against all the hyper consumerism of wellness and wanting to go back to what’s deeply human. So I’m gonna talk about trends kind of in those two buckets. first on the hardcare side, the two biggest trends we’re seeing in that, this year are longevity services just skyrocketing demand for that and the response to that demand skyrocketing. And of course, for weight loss, big pharma and wellness worlds collide. And so our trend for this year on that is that what wellness drugs need, a wellness check. but they’re certainly booming. So, in, in specific, what does that mean for, wellness businesses today? I think if you are a wellness business and you’re serving this higher income demographic. The demand is there for more diagnostics. You know, we’re talking about they want personalized longevity plans that link to their genetic, makeup. They want, you know, to have genetic, testing done wherever they’re getting their wellness services and we’re facing, how do we deal with this patient of the doctor that no longer is satisfied with what insurance pays for? So they’re looking for something else from their medical provider, but they’re not used to doing pay for services. And wellness centers are like, well, we don’t really do that medically stuff. We kind of were in our lane over here, but they’re consumers are flocking to those wellness facilities to say, you know, help us. We want this. So, so there’s a huge demand there. and, you know, for biohacking services, et cetera, and some major players are moving into the market like Fountain Life, and we see even the regular gyms responding to this like Lifetime, the Moira Performance and Longevity Clinic. Huge things around the world, like Live Lounge, Hook, Human Longevity, Inc. springing up everywhere. So if you’re a wellness business and you’re not looking into offering some kinda longevity services, that’s gonna be a wake up call for you, and something that you need to respond to. And in weight loss, you know, same thing even when we saw, okay, in fact, Oprah did do the weight loss drugs. That was a big news flash and it was already, the wave was already there in the general population that that was reaching all, many, many demographics of people. A huge wave of people demanding these weight loss drugs. And with that announcement and, Weight Watchers embracing it, Noom, you know, kind of the millennial answer to weight management platform, uh, highly focused on the psychology component, responding and offering Noom Med. That’s something again, that if you are a wellness center and offering weight loss, you cannot ignore and you certainly cannot shame the use of weight loss drugs. They’re here to stay and you know everyone from, you know, even Lifetime or Equinox who’s not offering the drugs themselves, but offer, you know, programs for those actually taking the drugs to compliment what they’re doing. So those are the two main things and, and what I think wellness brands have to watch out for in the, in the hardcare space. And the two main things that I, I’m seeing bubble up our latest report from on the softcare side, you know, wellness, tourism has been booming, you know, so these luxury resorts here and, you know, that’s one of our biggest growing sectors. We have a, an upcoming, um, that researchers are actually putting on aa special free webinar on that, on, March 27th from our institute, because it’s such a huge sector, exploding. But different this year, we’re seeing not these beautiful, uh, resort demand just those beautiful resorts so many extensive services, we’re seeing a rise of back to basics, back to ancient modalities, pilgrimage travel. So going to Bhutan or Sri Lanka, or the famous Camino de Santiago in Spain. These are the kind of trips that we see a huge, increase in demand for and, these countries are responding and, you know, have restored a lot of these trails and it’s very exciting. And then the other area. That we’ve seen a particularly large, and much overdue rise in is in men’s mental and social emotional health. So there’s been a huge increase in offerings for, those, for men which have been a, a, major forgotten about segment in mental wellness. it’s held onto its stigma, I think, a little bit more in that group and we see some very targeted services and centers open to men.
[00:09:24] Rochelle Reiter: Mm-Hmm. So interesting. So in light of these trends that are happening. What strategies should brands adopt to align themselves with the wellness movement in your opinion?
[00:09:36] Heidi Moon: Yeah, I think one of the main things, addition to those main trends in kind of hardcare and softcare seeing a couple other trends that I just wanna quickly mention because it influences my answer to this question. You know, climate is a huge, and seeing a big shift in, you know, climate adaptive wellness offerings that everything
[00:09:58] Rochelle Reiter: Mm-Hmm.
[00:09:59] Heidi Moon: offerings that are wellness resort being focused at evening and cooler hours we’re seeing a rise in travel to non hot equator type destinations. you, you wanna think about that. And we see a continuation in our trend from 2018, a rise in feminist wellness. that’s boomed the health, uh, focus the menopause.
[00:10:23] Rochelle Reiter: Mm-Hmm.
[00:10:24] Heidi Moon: Destigmatize focus in, uh, of our recent trends this year was about postpartum wellness, a focus on care for both men and women at this period. And so I think with all of these things, these changes happening and the market kind of diverging in these ways, one of the first things brands need to focus on is really being totally authentic. And transparent for what you are. I mean this is one of the most I important things for a brand in the wellness space right now. And one of the things we have to remember is the whole wellness field. There’s a segment of that that came out of a group of people feeling really like the medical system failed them. And so, for even the high tech things, when we’re really converging some medical offerings into the wellness space, we need to really be authentic and educate and authentically market what they’re going to truly receive in, in a treatment. And I think that brand authenticity and transparency is super important. I think you also have to know who you are as a business. You know, there’s this and then there’s that and wellness is everywhere now. So what are you, what is your place in the market? What are your core values? Are you going to be the higher tech and offer all that? If you do that, you’re gonna, you’re going to isolate those that are really wanting, you know, that more humanistic and back to basic accessible. You have to know, you know, which demographic you’re going after because the income gap is huge. And whatever you’re choosing in that, you need to make sure you have genuine solutions that the customer feedback loop is going to be positive to, because the customer feedback, as we all know in marketing, social media, digital platforms.
[00:12:19] Rochelle Reiter: Yes.
[00:12:20] Heidi Moon: really important not just because you want that like and that five star or whatever. It it really drives purchasing decisions of people for your brand.
[00:12:31] Rochelle Reiter: Yeah, great point. We talked earlier about how wellness is deeply emotional. So the next question is, how can marketers leverage that deeply emotional nature of wellness to forge stronger connections with their audience? You already mentioned authenticity, which I think is probably top on the list. Anything else?
[00:12:51] Heidi Moon: Well, I think two very specific things that any brand and wellness needs to do and get better at is storytelling and integrating the power of video. For a lot of the older brands, you know, they’re getting their, their nice new websites with the, the panoramic view of someone doing yoga and how beautiful their space is. But those really moving storytelling pieces, not just a main branding piece, but to constantly use those in reels in your digital marketing. And use it not just to show how beautiful your space is or what that treatment looks like, but to tell stories of people that this impacts. And one great example of that is this Fountain Life company. So here, in these last couple years we’re seeing this, you know, at, at first I was kind of thinking, gosh, this is kind of like a masculinization of wellness, you know, coming, being in the wellness field for 20 years and there’s a lot of women, you know, in the space different than other, markets. And here at these conferences I was like, whoa, you know, it’s great. We’re seeing more men. It’s getting more diverse. It’s wonderful. And I then I was kinda like, wow, we actually have a lot of men and wow, they’re really, they’re really finding solutions they’re just really all about results and the diagnostics and dah, dah. And one of these examples was Fountain Life. You know, they’re just, they’re just owning this longevity market in in the states and opening up clinics all over. But at first when I went to their website, I was like, what do they do? I don’t understand. You know what, what this is, let me, oh, it’s Precision Diagnostics, oh, they’re using AI. Okay, I kind of had to dig down and see what, what they were doing, and it was all this technical stuff and I didn’t really get it. Well, now if you go to their homepage, they have videos of a husband and wife and she gave him the gift of this Precision Diagnostics package and it saved his life. And the, the other person that, you know, went through and detected a cancer in the early stages, or a neurodegenerative disease that they would’ve never known, and you’re hearing their personal stories. I. It, it is night and day. Like how I, even though I know them, I’m in the industry, you know, we, they do some work with us. I’ve been heard their presentations. I, I was still trying to get, the gist of their brand. And now with that storytelling and the power of video, it’s crystal clear. And It’s no surprise to me, they’re one of the first big longevity clinics to be pulled into one of these big wellness real estate developments. This, This Valvaere in Park City, Utah. It’s a luxury wellness, real estate development and they just announced last year a partnership that they’re gonna be, integrated into that, development. But I think that that was a, a, a great example, but I think any, whether you’re in longevity.
[00:15:51] Heidi Moon: Whether you’re selling a pilgrimage, whether you’re, talking about men’s mental health. I think storytelling and the power of video to get to that truly emotional, authentic connection, sell in both, hard and soft areas. Uh,
[00:16:07] Rochelle Reiter: Yeah, that’s great.
[00:16:12] Rochelle Reiter: Thank you for listening to The 19 with Heidi Moon. To learn more about the Global Wellness Summit and their annual trends report, visit GlobalWellnessSummit. com. To learn more about Orange Label’s strategy, data analytics, media, social, content, and design services, visit OrangeLabelMarketing.com.
[00:16:30] Rochelle Reiter: A special thank you goes out to our contributors, Creative Services Director, Kelsey Phillips, Copy and Content Strategist, Ashley Andreen and Design and Sound Director, Micah Panzich. Be sure to subscribe to The 19 Marketing Podcast by Orange Label on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcast and Spotify, and leave us a review!