Offering wellness to your customers has never been more important. Across countless industries from food retailers to luxury hotels, wellness programs and wellness products are no longer optional. Here’s everything you need to know about adding wellness to your brand.

Everyone wants more wellness in 2021

It’s been an extremely difficult year this year, and the threat to human health has led to an increase in the individual and global search to be well. Never in most of our lifetimes has there been such a focus on health at such a large scale. While wellness has been a trend for years, now it’s personal. Customers of the luxury sector through to daily food chains are demanding brands consider their wellbeing.

An Ogilvy global survey of 7,000 consumers in 14 countries found:

• 77% of people say wellness is very or extremely important to them.

• 80% want to improve their wellness.

• Only 46% feel that brands prioritise their wellness; the number is 41% for the food sector and 53% for skin-care brands.

• 67% say there should be more wellness options, regardless of what they’re shopping for; more than 50% expect car, banking, airline and snack-food brands to offer wellness options.

• 59% agree it’s worth paying more for wellness options.

• 73% say all brands need a wellness strategy as part of their core mission.

As the results above demonstrate, showing your customers you care about their health, both mental health and physical health, is imperative in today’s world. Before 2020, genuine workplace wellness programs were rarely implemented and wellness products were restricted to the health and wellness industry. But no more.

With social media ever-present now, wellness offers have to be authentic and meaningful. 

Wellness is more than healthy food and spa treatments

Many brands have started wellness programs in the past 12 months to cater to the demands of both their customers and employees. This has come in the form of wellness to support mental health, employee health or even by adding wellness to an existing brand offering. When these offerings are done in a meaningful way, these brands should be applauded. 

However, some brands think providing spa treatments and a few menu items with healthy food serve as wellness programs or products. But they don’t. 

The new consumer wants to know their health is a priority, not a second thought.

If you wish to offer wellness experiences and treatments, they need to have a human-centred goal behind them. That can be lightness and laughter, building connection, creating calm, boosting immunity or even creating a moment of wonder and awe which is shown to boost well being too. Regardless of what you wish to offer, it needs to have a clear goal that shows insight into your unique customer base. 

Luxury brands need to focus on these goals when offering luxury wellness too, as an opulent spa no longer qualifies a hotel as a luxury wellness retreat. The world’s top wellness retreats have known this for years, but now the rest of the world is taking note.

All industries can offer wellness products

Wellness isn’t reserved for retreats, yoga studios and healthy food chains either. Any industry can get involved; It’s about catering to real people and their needs to have their health prioritised.

Whether you’re a hotel chain looking to add wellness retreats, a medical clinic looking to add fitness classes, or a ferry company looking to offer healthier, locally sourced food options, there are simple ways you can help your customers feel like you value their well being. It all starts with that human-centred goal to make the product meaningful to your customers.

What makes a wellness product meaningful?

Considering your customers in a holistic way can help create a meaningful wellness product. One of the easiest, most tangible ways to do this is to consider Maslow’s pyramid of needs.

The pyramid is as follows: Physiological, safety, love and belonging, esteem, and self-actualisation. Once the initial two needs have been met, wellness can attempt to address the last three: Love and belonging, esteem and self-actualisation. 

Belonging

After a year of isolation, quarantine, lack of touch and loss of community for many, many people are craving a sense of belonging. Brands, luxury hotels and wellness retreats can all help create this with meaningful, in-person events and community initiatives. 

Esteem

Building a customer’s esteem is well within the reach of wellness products. Whether your customer’s goal is weight loss, detox, boosting their health or just trying yoga for the first time, esteem-building is crucial.

There are countless elements that influence building self-esteem, from everything from staff interactions to the user experience of digital fitness tools and trackers.

Self-actualisation

Self-actualisation is an important part of any meaningful wellness initiative and a pillar of any world-class wellness resort.

In fact, helping a customer live their best life is the key goal of any wellness brand, product or wellness retreat.

Whether this is done through a philosophical, spiritual or scientific lens, self-actualisation is the reason customers will rave about your wellness product and keep coming back. 

How to add wellness to your hotel or brand

Creating an authentic, relatable and meaningful wellness product in 2021 means thinking beyond the old ideas. While holistic treatments, yoga and daily wellness programs are great, they’re not enough.

New customers want to know brands have considered their wellness, which includes everything from saving them time to decreasing stress levels, boosting immunity and building connection.

While it sounds like a mammoth task to weave all these elements into a product, it can be done. From luxury wellness through to wellness programs and initiatives; authentic, personalised products are key.

Adding wellness to your brand

As a health professional and wellness consultant, I have the unique, ongoing opportunity to watch which wellness strategies work, and which don’t resonate with real people in real settings. I’m so grateful to have worked with some of the world’s best wellness resorts and brands from retreats to hotels fitness brands, and I love to help brands offering meaningful luxury wellness programs and products to their customers.

If you’re looking to add wellness to your brand but you’re not sure how to start, contact me now. 

Brand I’ve Worked With:

• Liv Nordic & Viking Cruises

• Six Senses, Worldwide

• Chiva Som, Thailand

• Ananda, India

• Current Wellness Product Creation for 2 brands: Names protected by NDA.

Get in touch now!