Kearney Consumer Institute Q3 2024 Health & Wellness Brief: Findings Disrupt Popularly Held Tropes for Consumers and Brands

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Aug 21, 2024, 10:15 ET

Health and wellness is not a new "trend" but rather a continuation of a movement dating back to the 1920s.
76% of consumers say they live a healthy lifestyle, while 89% say they want to be even healthier.
85% of consumers say they know how to make healthy choices.
36% of consumers forgo health because they feel like they are "giving" up something, and 35% because they can't afford it.
Well over half of consumers identify exercise and sleep as the best ways to be healthy, yet for one-third, they're the first to be neglected under stress.
Implications for brands: avoid overmarketing and over-innovating.

CHICAGO, Aug. 21, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- A new report from the Kearney Consumer Institute (KCI) looks into what health and wellness means for consumers, including what their health aspirations are and how they pursue them. While health and wellness is a big, challenging, multifaceted, and nebulous area to dissect, KCI's Q3 2024 brief, Stayin' alive: The blur of health and wellness, examines the consumer's highly personal and emotional response to health, identifies the gap between what brands say about health and what consumers actually think, and provides guideposts to brands on how to better understand their customers' lifestyles around health, and how to better fit into it.

"Even with the overwhelming amount of choice in the health and wellness arena, consumers are defining what health means for themselves," noted KCI lead Katie Thomas. "They aren't looking for brands to tell them 'this is healthy'—there's way too much of that already. Brands shouldn't overmarket or over-innovate but should try to understand how consumers are thinking about their health. This can be contradictory, as there's a gap between what consumers say and what they do. For instance, if someone goes to a fast-food restaurant, are they really likely to order a salad, even if they think it's the healthier option?"

The research found that with nutrition, exercise, sleep, and other habits they've acknowledged as healthy, consumers make different trade-offs and often struggle to prioritize. For example, the KCI asked consumers which they thought was healthier, Ozempic or body positivity messaging; 90 percent chose the latter. And while 62 and 55 percent, respectively, identified exercise and sleep as the top factors in their health, these are among the first things to be neglected if consumers have a busy week.

The KCI report advises brands not to see themselves as the source of truth on health, as consumers continually make personalized choices and trade-offs. Meet consumers where they are: if health or wellness is part of a brand's trajectory or vision, the brand should work on improving access to and choice of healthier products rather than, for example, investing in "educating consumers." Finally, brands should focus on lifestyle rather than product or category-level choices.

Other findings in the KCI Q3 2024 brief include ways companies can understand consumers' sentiments around their health and wellness needs, including:

Mental and physical health can be at odds
How consumers prioritize their health in relation to other life priorities
Health as both a reality and an aspiration
The fact that there is no common agreement on what health is
Consumer acknowledgement that it can be difficult to consistently prioritize health
Health as a personal, emotional, and complicated motivator
Healthy living still feels like a sacrifice or challenge
"Health" exemplifies nearly every consumer challenge

"Health matters to people—calling it a trend oversimplifies it," said Katie Thomas. "Consumers prioritize health, but also know how to make healthy choices. What we want to get across to brands is that they need to understand the complexity of consumers'—and particularly Americans'—relationship to health and wellness. Health crossing over into wellness and self-care opens the door for trade-offs and rationalizations, such as going for a facial (self-care) rather than a workout at the gym (health). Brands that understand these nuances can walk the fine line of providing added health value while not radically changing their core offerings."

View the full brief here.

About the Kearney Consumer Institute

The Kearney Consumer Institute (KCI) evaluates today's business challenges and opportunities through the eyes and experiences of consumers, advocating a consumer-first perspective. By leveraging consumer behavior data and insights, the KCI helps generate conversation, and ultimately action, around how to address consumer needs with meaningful benefits.

Using a consumer-first lens the KCI looks at today's consumer revolution not by thinking about consumers, but by thinking like consumers. Our consumer-centric approach includes simple, precise, plain-language conversations on topics like trends, consumer communities, convenience, loyalty, service, fair pricing, and product development and technologies.

About Kearney
Kearney is a leading global management consulting firm. For nearly 100 years, we have been a trusted advisor to C-suites, government bodies, and nonprofit organizations. Our people make us who we are. Driven to be the difference between a big idea and making it happen, we work alongside our clients to regenerate their businesses to create a future that works for everyone. www.kearney.com

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SOURCE Kearney