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Is your consumer health brand facing an identity crisis?
If you’re still defining yourself by the boundaries of traditional healthcare, or your path to growth seems increasingly unclear… it’s possible you’re going through an identity crisis.
Powerful influences from wellness, beauty, and tech have redefined what ‘health’ truly means to people. It’s become all about the total experience your brand delivers in this new landscape, not just what it sells.
This is convergence in action: traditionally distinct categories intersecting, requiring brands to offer more unified and comprehensive value. Brands must evolve their experience to find new routes to growth and drive loyalty.
The pace of convergence is defining this dynamic landscape, and causing brands to wonder… what’s happening to our brand identity?
The rapid convergence of consumer health
Understanding the drivers of this shift is essential to maintain strong brand identity and relevance:
- Wellness is now a common ground between traditionally distinct categories: Many brands are joining the wellness space from traditionally distinct categories. Pharma is adopting consumer tones, consumer health is leaning into holistic wellbeing, and FMCG is adding wellness benefits to products. This is driven by consumer desire for proactive, healthy lifestyles – a need relevant to so many categories that it forces brands to converge rapidly.
- Lost trust is causing consumers to search for alternatives: People are losing faith in old-style healthcare that feels slow, impersonal, or hard to access. Frustrations shared online, especially by Gen Z, lead consumers to digital wellness platforms for faster, responsive, personalised support.
- Brand connection is a differentiator in saturated markets: Consumers increasingly choose brands aligning with their identity and values, going beyond product function. To meet this, health turns to wellness for holistic approaches, beauty for self-expression, and tech for personalization. Rapid online sharing of successful examples then speeds up this category blending.
The result – traditional market boundaries have been dismantled, and a new, converged landscape formed. The upshot – adjacent categories stretch into the same needs and product benefits, making the competition stronger than ever.
In a high-stakes environment, even well-intentioned brands can easily slip into costly pitfalls when deciding how far to push their boundaries.
Pause before you leap...
Before deciding how far your brand can and should go, it’s crucial to recognise and understand the common pitfalls that can undermine even well-intentioned efforts:
- The pitfall of inauthentic stretch
Venturing into new wellness or lifestyle territories, unanchored from your brand’s authentic core, is a common pitfall. A forced or opportunistic stretch can confuse customers, erode trust, and dilute your brand’s meaning and identity.
- The gamble of misaligned capabilities
Underestimating the capabilities needed to win in converged spaces, or choosing the wrong path to acquire them, is a critical misstep. Rushed internal builds, ill-fitting acquisitions, or poor partnerships often waste investment, cause strategic drift, and fail to deliver value.
- The tightrope of heritage vs. hype
For science-led brands, chasing wellness hype without rigorous validation is a high-stakes gamble. Compromising non-negotiable evidence standards for trends can shatter credibility and trust, making the brand seem opportunistic, and not committed to well-being.
Being aware of these common missteps is vital for any brand looking to stretch successfully. The goal is to make smart, deliberate choices that reinforce your unique strengths, not dilute them. While the challenges are significant, this is precisely why a clear, phased strategic approach is essential..
Your strategic roadmap for navigating convergence: Now, next, and beyond
For consumer health brands looking to navigate this new terrain successfully, you need to ascertain whether your brand should stretch in this new converged landscape, how to do it successfully, and what it means for your brand identity:
1. NOW: Audit Your Category Codes. Take an honest look at your brand. Does the current identity reflect a traditional healthcare model or a lifestyle approach confined by old norms? Does the brand resonate with today’s consumer, or does it need updating? Do you understand consumer needs and are you speaking their language, in their preferred channels? Answering these questions will help define your authentic foundation and ascertain what you would be stretching for.
2. NEXT: Reimagine Your Competitive Set. The competition in consumer health has changed. A sleep supplement now competes with apps like Calm or Spotify routines, not just medication. To find your distinct edge, study this expanded territory and define your unique value proposition within it. Doing so will confirm what new capabilities are needed to stretch successfully; informing strategic decisions like whether to build organically, acquire a new brand or technology, or partner with an existing one.
3. BEYOND: Design and Redefine Your Category. This is where your brand can actively shape the future, creating new value in the converged ‘in-between’ space through authentic, resonant innovation. How far your brand can credibly go is partially defined by customer perception of your core values and mission, and the alignment of these elements with their new needs. Whilst some values can be adapted, for science-led brands it means leading innovation with an unwavering commitment to scientific credibility.
The convergence in consumer health isn’t a fleeting trend; it’s the new reality. Navigating this relies on understanding the drivers and strategically evolving to move beyond outdated models and build a resilient, relevant brand identity that ensures future success.
Get in touch with STRAT7 Advisory today to plan your Now, Next, and Beyond.
