Trillion dollar big according to a recent McKinsey report.
Back when I was a graduate, spending half your salary in the pub by the office felt like a London Right of Passage. Today, it’s spending your Saturday morning at Barry’s Bootcamp, followed by munching over-priced “Smashed Avo on Sourdough” and an oat milk flat white on the Kings Road. Designer handbags have been swapped for the latest Lululemon leggings, and holiday plans have gone from all- nighters in Ibiza to yoga retreats and Ironman triathlons.
McKinsey’s report echoes this trend, with numbers to backup my anecdotal experience. According to their survey, consumers expect to increase their overall spending in the wellness category on purchases of wellness products and services over the next year. McKinsey’s analyst expects a greater shift toward services, especially those (such as personal training, nutritionists, and counselling) that emphasize physical and mental health.
The usual suspects are credited with this boom; growth in natural/ethical products, increased demand for personalisation, growth of digital — plus an interesting debate on the future of influencers.
In Brazil and China 45–55% of consumers have made a purchase based on the recommendation of an influencer
There’s no doubt that influencers have influence… In the U.S, Europe and Japan 10–15% of consumers say they’ve already made a purchase decision based on an influencer’s recommendation, and this percentage rises to 45–55% when you consider markets such as Brazil & China. Sadly for celebrities their relative influence is waning, with the larger opportunity for brands sitting amongst large (100k) and small scale social media influencers.
We see this trend firsthand at Sudor. Whilst in beta we’ve partnered with fitness professionals with social media audiences. We constantly monitor the relative conversion rate across the different creators that we work with and see the same trends noted in the report.
Social media is harder than it looks — an art as much as it’s a science. The strongest conversion rates are amongst the creators that have built their community over years (not months), often creating content for 5+ years before starting to monetise their base. There’s sadly not a “one size fits all” metric to indicate likely success — those that have the closest relationship with their community that are the most successful. This is notoriously hard to measure (most of the most powerful interactions happen deep within the DMs- not simply as a like/comment/share on a post).
McKinsey end their report with a clear and decisive outlook for the wellness industry, one that’s shared by myself and the wider Sudor team:
Wellness is here to stay as consumers across nations plan to increase their spending on personal health, appearance, fitness, and more. If the pandemic has taught us one thing, it’s that physical and mental health will remain a priority for millions of people across the globe for a long time to come.
We look forward to winning.
You can read the McKinsey article in full here: https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/consumer-packaged-goods/our-insights/feeling-good-the-future-of-the-1-5-trillion-wellness-market
