Part 2: Navigating the Wellness Landscape in 2024 - Unveiling McKinsey's Insights

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Feb 22

Part 2: Navigating the Wellness Landscape in 2024 - Unveiling McKinsey's Insights

Written by: Paula Antalffy 4-5 minute read

The vast global wellness market is valued at an estimated $1.8 trillion worldwide, and stands as one of the biggest markets in the world, with exceptional year-on-year growth. McKinsey's recent Future of Wellness survey aims to provide valuable insights into the trends and emerging sectors influencing this market's trajectory.

If you haven't had the chance yet, we urge you to explore Part 1 of our series, where we explored five pivotal trends steering the wellness landscape.

Continuing on from there, in this instalment, we will delve into the remaining seven growth areas pinpointed by McKinsey. Our aim is to furnish a comprehensive overview while spotlighting key insights relevant to business proprietors operating within the wellness sphere.

Gut Health: Cultivating Balance

McKinsey's research highlights a significant shift in consumer attitudes towards gut health, with over 80% of consumers in key markets considering it important. Probiotic supplements and probiotic-rich foods are popular choices for tackling this challenge.

Furthermore, McKinsey's research underscores the expanding nature of this market, revealing that approximately one-third of US consumers, one-third of UK consumers, and half of Chinese consumers express a desire for an increased variety of products to support their gut health.

We also see the same trend towards more at-home solutions in this area, with an increasing consumer interest in microbiome testing and personalised nutrition.

For business owners within this space, these are two key areas to innovate in.

Sexual Health: Breaking Taboos

The conversation around sexual health is evolving, driven by cultural shifts and improvements in sexual education. McKinsey's findings reveal a growing demand for sexual-health products, with 87% of US consumers reporting increased spending in this category.

This sector is also seeing growth in female specific sexual-health support, such as low libido, vaginal dryness, and pain during intercourse.

Covid-19 marked a crucial time in this sector, with many retailers offering sexual-health products online for the first time. Today, McKisney’s research indicates an interesting shift in the opposite direction, with more traditional retailers offering sexual-health products and brands on store shelves.

For companies within the sexual-health space, this opens up a whole new market for disruption and innovation. As sexual-health becomes less taboo, business owners can become more ambitious about the accessibility of their products to the wider general public.

Sleep: Unveiling Opportunities

Despite consistently ranking as a top priority for consumers, sleep remains an area with significant unmet needs. Last year, a staggering 37% of US consumers expressed a need for more sleep and mindfulness-related products and services - particularly those targeting cognitive function, stress, and anxiety management. In the year since, little has changed.

McKinsey's research highlights that one of the key reasons why this market is often underserved is due to the complexity of factors influencing sleep quality, such as diet, exercise, coffee consumption, screen time and more. Therefore, it is no wonder that no single player within the tech space has been able to come up with a comprehensive, and more importantly, effective solution.

The whitepaper recommends that businesses within this space can leverage more biometric data available to learn about individual sleep patterns. Through a use of data, companies can not only learn more about how to tackle the tricky challenges of sleep.

Women’s Health: Bridging the Gap

Historically underserved and underfunded, the realm of women's health is experiencing a resurgence driven by increasing consumer interest and technological advancements.

Although the majority of respondents reported purchasing menstrual-care and sexual-health products, consumers actually spend the most on menopause and pregnancy-related products in the past year.

Like in so many other sectors, tech is proving to be revolutionary. Today’s market is offering more and more data driven solutions, such as devices for identifying peak fertility windows.

Despite this progress, this market is still severely underserved. Businesses within the women’s health space have lots of opportunity for exciting innovation, particularly addressing menopause needs and enhancing digital tools to cater to diverse health concerns among women.

Healthy Ageing: Embracing Longevity

The pursuit of healthy ageing and longevity is gaining momentum worldwide, fueled by preventive medicine and advancements in health technology.

Over 60 percent of surveyed consumers rated purchasing products or services aiding healthy ageing and longevity as "very" or "extremely" important. Approximately 70% of consumers in the UK and US, and 85% in China, reported increased purchases in this category over the past year compared to previous years.

What’s also interesting to note, is that this increased interest in age-preventative products was consistent across age groups. This suggests that the collective effort towards healthy ageing is driven by both younger individuals seeking preventive measures and older generations aiming to enhance longevity.

The globe’s ageing population, and consumers expressing keen interest in products and services that support healthy ageing, there is a vast opportunity for companies to adopt a holistic approach when serving this wellness market. This includes considering mental health and social factors alongside physical well-being.

Weight Management: Striving for Balance

Weight management continues to be a prevalent concern, particularly in the United States, where obesity rates remain high.

McKinsey's research highlights varied perceptions regarding intervention effectiveness across regions, with prescription medication emerging as a noteworthy contender. However, the landscape remains dynamic. Half of US consumers regarded prescription medication, such as glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) drugs, as highly effective interventions. However, perceptions of prescription medication varied in other regions: less than 30 percent of consumers in the UK and China viewed weight loss drugs as very effective.

Given the novelty of using GLP-1 drugs (such as Wegovy and Ozempic) for weight loss, it is premature to gauge their broader impact on the consumer health and wellness market. Therefore businesses within the weightloss market should monitor the space to see more concrete evidence before making big changes in their approach to weight loss.

The Wellness Market of The Future

Above all else, it is clear from McKinsey’s whitepaper that the wellness landscape is ripe with opportunities for innovation and growth. By staying informed of these trends and leveraging data-driven insights, businesses can position themselves at the forefront of the evolving wellness market. This can help drive positive outcomes for both consumers and stakeholders alike.

To summarise, McKinsey's seven key areas of growth show the following unique trends:

Shifting consumer attitudes towards gut health drive demand for probiotic products and personalised nutrition.
Cultural shifts in sexual health lead to increased spending and a growing market for taboo-breaking products.
Sleep remains a top consumer priority, offering untapped opportunities for comprehensive solutions using biometric data.
Renewed interest in women's health, particularly in menopause and pregnancy-related products, calls for innovative digital tools.
Global momentum in healthy ageing fuels demand for longevity products across age groups.
Varied perceptions of new weight loss drug effectiveness prompts businesses to monitor market trends, before making drastic pivots.

If you are a business looking to expand into the wellness market or keep up with the latest opportunities in the sector, now is as good a time as ever to capitalise on this growing and thriving market.

Embrace the wellness movement

As individuals increasingly prioritise their wellness, the call for a healthier and more balanced lifestyle extends into workplace dynamics and mindsets. Today, employees expect their employers to prioritise their well-being more than ever before. This drive for a healthy work-life equilibrium, fostering a sense of community in the workplace, and contributing to the broader sustainability of the planet is also influencing job decisions.

For employers, establishing a wellness-oriented workplace may seem challenging. Addressing diverse wellness needs and individual challenges within the team can be complex. However, as with many modern wellness challenges, technology and innovation offer solutions.

Start-ups like myday are developing comprehensive solutions for workplace wellness. Their app serves as an initial step towards cultivating a wellness-centred workplace.

The app's social features enable team members to foster a community around shared goals and obstacles. These in-app groups can transcend organisational boundaries, connecting individuals across different companies.

Moreover, myday incentivizes employees to prioritise their health at work. Daily wellness challenges encourage team members to allocate time for self-care. Achieving these objectives allows users to contribute to global impact initiatives, enabling them to recognise that their daily self-care efforts contribute to a broader positive influence on people and the planet.