Live Well London 2020 Panel: Consumer Trends, Habits and Behaviours in Wellness
Household’s very own Experience Strategist Pratik Vyas presented at Live Well London 2020 in February at Old Billingsgate. He was joined alongside Jack Tang, CEO and Co-founder of Urban and Amira Hashish, Executive Digital Editor of the Evening Standard to unpack the latest customer behaviours, habits and trends in the Wellness Industry.
Pratik spoke about five trends that will become the norm as we progress through 2020 and beyond.
Everyday Wellness
The concept of ‘wellness’ has evolved beyond a one-dimensional experience. Customers want brands to understand that their wellness needs are multi-faceted and extend beyond physical and mental health, and into their everyday lives.
In 2020, we will see brands focused on owning more parts of customers’ wellness throughout the day – morning, afternoon and evening. And in order to do this, brands are evolving their physical experiences to become multi-purpose spaces. Ikea Greenwich is a prime example of this. The brand has introduced yoga sessions within the retail store and has developed the Learning Lab, a space that offers bookable workshops and activities on how customers can be more sustainable. The store helps Ikea to achieve its sustainability goals.
As living well becomes a bigger part of our everyday lives, brands will look to diversify their wellbeing offering to meet customers’ multi-faceted wellness needs.
A new breed of digital wellbeing
Our relationship with technology has become an essential part of daily life. We’d be lost without it. From socialising, shopping and wellness, it has influenced and transformed the way in which we interact with each other and brands in both physical and digital spaces.
At CES this year, we saw a number of brands use technology to make experiences more engaging, convenient and immersive. From digital workout mirrors, Oral B’s AI toothbrush, and intelligent clothing from Xenoma, brands are leveraging technology to create wellness in every moment.
But this relationship isn’t just held to physical spaces and devices but transcends to digital spaces. In an increasingly online social era, customers are looking to achieve wellness through digital personas of themselves. We’ve seen ‘finstas’ becoming commonplace on social media, and we expect digital avatars to be an extension of this.
Drest is an app that invites users to dress photo-realistic avatars in styling challenges, then buy physical versions of those garments on Farfetch. The app offers customers a chance to achieve fulfillment through their digital-persona first, allowing this to radiate to their physical-self afterward.
In an age of digital, we’ll see more brands look to use digital tech and mediums to create immersive wellness experiences.
Meaningful collaborations
Competition has never been harder than it is now. Brands are adapting their offerings, stretching across industries in order to appeal to new and existing customer needs.
Competition is incredibly fierce in the wellness space, in a bid to tackle this, brands are increasingly getting into bed and are ‘hooking up’. The recent Roksanda x Lululemon allowed Roksanda to appeal to the wellness needs of its customers, whilst also appealing to existing Lululemon customers. For Lululemon, it created the opportunity to appeal to the luxury market and expand its customer base.
2020 is the age of brand partnerships. We’re expecting more pop-ups, more collaborations and more partnerships across categories as brands look to test new waters. Read more about meaningful partnerships in the travel industry here.
Sustainable Rentals
The effects of climate change are prevalent, and one generation leading a charge to a better future is Gen Z’s. They are vocal about their beliefs, which we’ve seen through mass movements such as the Climate Change protests and Extinction Rebellion.
But this generation doesn’t just want to vocalise their beliefs, they want to act upon them. We’re seeing it through the rise of conscious consumers who are becoming more inclined to shop through subscriptions and rental models as they turn away from fast fashion.
We’ve seen rental fashion take off to accommodate this new customer need across the world. Dedicated brands offering rentable solutions such as Rent the Runaway and Y Closet have seen their revenue and customer base rise as more customers shop more sustainably. Even traditional players such as H&M in Sweden are jumping on the trend as they look to join a growing market which is expected to grow to $4.4 billion by 2028. (Global Data, 2019)
At Household, we expect to see more and more brands tap into rental and subscription models in order to appeal to conscious consumers and take a slice of the growing market.
Amplified city experiences
An increase in the number of people living in urban environments is challenging how brands can create immersive wellness experiences at a small scale. In 2018, 55% of the world’s population lived in urban areas, and that number is predicted to increase to 68% by 2050. (UN, 2018)
Customers who are increasingly living in urban environments still want to maintain their sense of community and want brands to deliver local experiences that bring like-minded people together.
Over the past year, we’ve seen brands create city-focused offerings, creating communities with locals in the area and embedding technology to create amplified multi-sensory experiences.
One example of this is ChromaYoga. The brand has nestled itself within Shoreditch to create a quiet space away from the hustle and bustle of the city. The brand uses light therapy, brain simulating soundscapes, and natural scents to fully immerse customers into a wellness experience, creating a wellness community for busy Londoners.
We predict that amplified local wellness experiences will continue to grow as we become more urbanised. Brands will look to create ‘wellness hotspots’ within cities, integrating technology into their experiences to create fully immersive multi-sensory destinations to meet customers’ wellness needs.
If you’re interested in hearing more about where wellness is heading in 2020, get in touch with us via phone or email.
