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Welcome to the first homepage edition of i2P for 2012.
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Volume 2012 Number 1

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Wellness - What is the Pharmacy View?

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	Staff Writer articles by this author...
Editing and Researching news and stories about global and local Pharmacy Issues

Pharmacy, in general. is a destination point for illness.
It has yet to spark consumer interest in the broad concept of wellness, and this is where consumer concerns are being increasingly directed.
An interest in "wellness" used to be something exotic. And to the extent consumers gave any thought to the concept, it was often defined simply as the absence of illness. But "wellness" is now very much a mainstream preoccupation, and one that's viewed more broadly as a marker for quality of life. A report released this month by The Hartman Group, a US-based consultancy/research firm that has made a specialty of analyzing attitudes and behaviors in this area, took a detailed look at what wellness now means to various consumer cohorts and how this affects their engagement with products and services, especially foods.
One only has to look at the Woolworths logo to realise how seriously wellness is being taken in Australia and why that organisation wants to create a health and wellness environment plus leverage the pharmacy destination point of illness.
This would create a model with a strong holistic image, attractive to a majority of consumers.

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When asked about how they define wellness, 67 percent of respondents to The Hartman Group's polling included "not being ill." But just as many cited "being able to deal with stress."
Even more included "being physically fit" (73 percent) and "feeling good about myself" (74 percent) in their definition of wellness.

As consumers define wellness more broadly, does this make the concept too vague to be a useful sales point for marketers of wellness-related products and services?
And how does pharmacy shape its offering and marketing direction to provide some expert focus on the subject?
Will this make it more difficult for brands that are seriously focused on wellness to distinguish themselves from those that have merely latched on to some of the rhetoric of wellness?
Authenticity is communicated through the delivery of a compelling narrative for products (and services) containing whole, real and clean ingredients created by knowledgeable people who genuinely care.
So as a pharmacist are you equipped to guide a consumer to identify good food through to food extracts (nutritional supplements) that may be further modified and be classified as drugs?
Can you define the boundaries and fill in the knowledge gaps?

Consumers also understand the source of wellness largely as a matter of "you are what you eat."
So how do we harness this powerful consumer direction to become part of the armoury of pharmacy?
As the report states the matter, "More than ever, consumers view fresh, real and clean food as the foundation for [health and wellness]."
In part, this interest takes the form of shunning things that are bad for you.

"The top ingredients that consumers are avoiding are related to cardiovascular health: cholesterol, saturated fat, trans fat and salt," says the report, with older consumers especially apt to steer clear of these things. 

One part of the survey asked respondents to say how well they're described by a number of statements about shopping for food and beverages.
Twenty-nine percent said they're described well by "I look for foods and beverages that are good for my heart."
Twenty-seven percent said the same about looking for foods/beverages "with added vitamins and minerals (e.g., orange juice with calcium)."
Also the statement "describes me well" elicited that votes from the survey's respondents were shopping for foods/beverages "that help lower my cholesterol" (24 percent), "that are minimally processed" (21 percent), "that are locally grown or produced" (20 percent) and "that contain only ingredients I recognize" (19 percent).

Fewer (11 percent) said they're well described by "I look for foods and beverages that are labeled 'organic.'"
"Organic" is already mainstream (since 2008) and is a cue for quality, but other cues have evolved to communicate quality experiences and products.

Prevention vs Treating:

The report emphasizes that consumers are more apt to see foods as useful in preventing than in treating health problems.
For instance, 56 percent said they're using foods to prevent high cholesterol, vs. 30 percent using foods to treat it.
Similarly, respondents were much more apt to be using foods to prevent than to treat cancer (46 percent vs. 10 percent), high blood pressure (41 percent vs. 15 percent) and osteoporosis (27 percent vs. 10 percent).
Excessive weight is an exception to this pattern, as nearly equal numbers of respondents said they're using foods to prevent it (57 percent) or treat it (59 percent).

Sometimes, consumers' pursuit of wellness brings a burst of attention to a particular element in food. Vitamin D is a current case in point.
The report says "interest in Vitamin D has exploded", and it's a reflection of what can happen when consumers hear about something "from multiple sources" -- a phenomenon that can transform mild interest into specific action.

Mainstream media has been publicising Vitamin D in the past year with consumers hearing about it on television, Internet newsletters and blogs, newspapers, women's magazines, radio interviews and written information from some pharmacies and health food stores. The upshot, according to the report's survey data, is that 60 percent of respondents said they're adding more Vitamin D to their diets.

More broadly, interest in wellness (and the products and services that link themselves to it) is prompted or intensified by different factors, depending on one's circumstances. "Aging and changing health are key triggers for older cohorts," says the report, "while energy and stress trigger awareness for younger cohorts."

Degrees of Intensity:

Of course, while interest in health and wellness is widespread, it's not universally strong. Based on respondents' answers to the survey, the report classified 13 percent as "Core" participants in the "world of wellness" -- meaning they're the "most intensely involved" and tend to be "early adopters, trendsetters, evangelists" for wellness.
A majority of respondents, 62 percent, were categorized as "Mid-level" (broken down further as 23 percent "Inner Mid-level" and 39 percent "Outer Mid-level") in their wellness engagement.
The Mid-levelers are "not as intensely involved with or committed as Core consumers, though they exhibit some attitudinal and behavioral characteristics of the Core." The remaining 25 percent were classified as being on the "Periphery" of wellness world, meaning they're the "least involved" with it.

The groups differ significantly when it comes to translating intention into action. As the report puts it, "Consumers in the Periphery and Outer Mid-level tend to have more wellness aspirations than behaviors." Those in the Inner Mid-level "engage in wellness more behaviorally and less aspirationally," while the "Core consumers' participation in wellness is almost entirely behavioral."

As you'd expect, these different kinds of consumers have different approaches to food as a promoter of health and wellness. Periphery consumers are oriented to avoiding the bad stuff, whereas Mid-level and Core consumers are focused on seeking positives from their food/beverages.

One characteristic shared across these different types is people's sense (warranted or otherwise) that they have some expertise about health and nutrition. Eighty-two percent of Core respondents agreed with the statement, "I am knowledgeable about my health and nutrition."
And so they may be.
But, less plausibly, the statement also drew agreement from 70 percent of Mid-level and 58 percent of Periphery respondents.

Marinating Information

Does misplaced faith in their nutrition-and-wellness savvy make lots of consumers a tougher audience for the messages of brands that are serious about wellness?
Consumers have been marinating in health-and-wellness information for the past decade but unfortunately, a lot of this information has been contradictory.
Unless Core, consumers are confused by all the information available, and are resorting to intuition and pragmatism to determine what products will serve their needs.
Marketers need not cut through ignorance, but rather emphasize their products' differentiators and authenticity."

Indeed, wellness marketers need to stifle the impulse to feel they're bringing enlightenment to the benighted. That's notably the case when it comes to moving mainstream consumers along from mere aspiration to tangible action.
Although many companies would like to speed this process along, consumers do not respond well to attempts to 'educate' them.
When spoken to as a peer, and presented with high-quality products (regardless of health-and-wellness positioning), consumers respond with interest as they seek high-quality experiences for a quality life."

Whatever your views on health, balanced nutrition and fresh foods will underpin most people in their perspective of wellness. It is gradually seeping into pharmacy consciousness, with many US pharmacies already taking up the challenge.
Food supermarkets are also paralleling this effort as is readily seen by the "fresh" message delivered in their advertising and store presentation.
Because it is relatively new ground, readers are encouraged to share their views in the comments panel below.

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