Health & Wellness Industry Brands Report

According to the health & wellness industry trade body the Global Wellness Institute, the global health & wellness market was estimated at $3.7 trillion in 2015.

That’s a lot of spend to play for, and when it comes down to who we trust with looking after our bodies, much of it is brand driven.

When you’re choosing a gym to join, do you look for the brand that aligns with your sense of self and workout ethos, so you’re surrounding by like-minded people?

When you’re rushing round your favourite pharmacy, do you take the time to analyse each individual remedy on offer, or do you instinctively grab off the shelf the brand that you’re familiar with or is top of mind thanks to the ad you just saw?

When choosing the right sportswear, supplement, health snack, insurance or any other number of health and wellness related brands, are you driven by convenience, or convinced after research into the right option for you and your particular situation?

For many consumers, the answer to those questions is more often than not ‘yes’ – and this is why health and wellness brands plough millions of pounds into ‘above the line’ advertising campaigns across TV, radio and billboards as well as digital.

To capture a share of this lucrative market, it’s essential to be well known, and well liked.

So which brands are winning across those two major criteria, and what else can we learn about the health & wellness industry from Attest’s first Health & Wellness Brand Index?

A diverse mixture of brands

This is a slightly more evenly distributed market than previously seen in our Alcohol Brand Index and Snacks Brand Index. In total there were 161 individual brands named in our test of unprompted brand recall.

A brand had to have 0.5% of unprompted brand recall to be in the Top 26 brands, and 1.4% to be in the Top 10, making it more competitive at the top.

Overall, unprompted brand recall is topped by Holland & Barrett, with an unprompted recall of 14.6%.

In our snack brand leadership matrix, we focused on the top 15 brands, who all had an unprompted brand recall of at least 0.9% and above.

Within that leadership matrix, we can see that pharmacies/retailers are the most recognised sub-category when it comes to brand recognition, with Holland & Barrett and Boots taken the top two spots.

However gyms make up a third of the Top 15, but each with much smaller levels of recall.

The NHS is the third most cited brand, with Bupa 6th as the other major healthcare provider mentioned.

Fitbit (4th) is a standalone technology provider in the Top 15 (though both Apple and Google are in the Top 26).

Nike has over double the brand recall of Adidas, the only two sportswear brands making the leaders list.

Vitabiotics is the sole nutrient/supplement brand to make the Top 15 (beating out competitors like Myprotein and Slimfast who are both in the Top 26).

Two FMCG brands – Innocent and Kellogg’s – round out the Top 15

Well liked at the top

As an industry, health and wellness see’s huge fluctuations in Net Promoter Score (NPS), a well regarded measure of how well a brand is doing in keeping its customers happy.

The industry’s average Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a modest 24.5%, however the average amongst the Top 15 is a stronger 37%.

NPS in this sector was higher for females (28.1%) and a little lower for males (20.7%).

Looking at different age groups, NPS is weak for Gen Z (21 and under) at just 8%, this rises to 23.1% for Millennials (22-35), and further again to 27.4% for Gen X (36-55) and it is by far the strongest amongst Boomers (55+), at 50%.

Wales and the North West were most positive about the industry, with NPS scores of 39.3% and 34.8% respectively, with the South East least impressed (just 13.6%).

These NPS scores shows there is a lot of work to be done in winning over the next generation.

Strong purchase intent

Another key takeaway from the data is how strong a correlation there is between knowing a brand and the likelihood that consumers are likely to buy it – though it is less strong than seen in other Brand Index reports.

48.6% of consumers are ‘very likely’ to purchase from a brand they could name, with a further 31.3% ‘likely’ to do so.

The major factor affecting purchase intent is Net Promoter Score (NPS).

For brands with an NPS of 6 or below, a ‘very likely’ to purchase intent reduces to just 7.1% while ‘very unlikely’ grows from 1.7% to 6.6% (and unlikely from 2.3% to 9%). On the opposite end of the spectrum, those giving a 9 or a 10 in NPS were 81.1% ‘very likely’ to purchase that brand.

This goes to show the importance of measuring NPS for health & wellness brands.

Key attributes

What do consumers want in a top health & wellness brand? As you can see from our wordcloud, the top attributes are: good/great products; quality; service; range; recommendations; and brand.

Health & Wellness Index Leaders

The overall leaders of our first Health & Wellness Brand Index were as follows (ranked by Total Brand Equity, on the right):

You can see how this looks plotted as both Total Brand Equity (TBE) and against the matrix of ‘well known and well liked.’

A few quick takeaways

Five brands in our Top 26 have negative NPS – Fitness First, Vitality, Weight Watchers, Bannatynes and Nuffield Health – is a situation that should cause alarm.

Negative NPS means more people are likely to say negative things about the brand than positive things, which can be damaging for their reputation.

A few comments (across the brands) that have led to less positive scores include:

• “Based on reviews I’ve heard.”
• “Expensive.”
• “Heard bad things from friends and families regarding their experience.”
• “No individuality.”

This shows the importance of managing reputation online, offering excellent customer service, delivering value for money and establishing a strong brand identity.

SlimFast is a brand that is doing very well across all the index’s measures, with excellent purchase intent (83.33) and NPS (66.67% – way above the industry average), leading to it enjoying the second highest Brand Strength score amongst all 26 top brands.

One assumes their purchase intent is so high because when someone is in the market to lose weight, they will be highly motivated to find the right products and support needed to help them achieve their goals.

Some the comments shine a light on why their NPS is so strong:

• “Because it helps with losing weight and to get fit”
• “Because they are the best in what they do”
• “Good brand”
• “Great results”

In short, they deliver.

They’re kicking off a major integrated promotion push this month, so it will be interesting to see how their numbers shift in our Q2 update.

In conclusion

The health & wellness sector is a tough one to crack, but the rewards for doing so are huge.

Recall is correlated to purchase intent, but NPS is most important factor.

Measuring these key metrics will help you to figure out which aspects of your brand need to be worked on so you can stay (or break into) the top echelons.

And if your brand wasn’t featured, we can help you run a tailored brand equity matrix specific to your category or target consumer (e.g. just for supplements, or just for health insurance).

Get in touch with us to learn more.