home : hartbeat : women-wellness-cultural-trends-societal-factors-part-two

10.04.2002

“HartBeat” is The Hartman Group's FREE online newsletter, providing insight, analysis, information and strategy to give business leaders the knowledge and vision to build sustainable brands.

For more Hartman Group articles on WOMEN'S WELLNESS...
NATURAL SENSIBILITY

Women's Wellness: Lifestage vs. Lifestyle

This issue of HartBeat is excerpted from a recent N|sight Magazine, The Hartman Group's bi-annual publication exploring the dynamics of the health and wellness arena.

Archives »
Click here for an archive of past HartBeat articles

digg
del.icio.us

reddit
twitter

friendfeed

StumbleUpon

Women's Wellness: cultural Trends & Societal Factors - Part Two

In Part I of this series on women's wellness, we looked at the psychological, emotional and individual needs driven by both a women's lifestage and lifestyle. In this issue, we step outside of the individual and consider how cultural and societal factors affect a woman's purchase decision.

Let's take Amanda as an example of how these pieces fit together. Amanda tends to be the primary caregiver in her family and as such finds that time for herself is scarce - Amanda works part-time, has two children (ages 3 and 9), her husband works 60 hours per week or more, and her mother has recently undergone chemotherapy for breast cancer. She feels that taking care of herself is the first step in taking better care of others.

Compressed Sense of Time - Amanda is in a time famine. She wants to simplify and maximize her personal health and wellness regimes. She seeks ways to engage in self-care through integrated and personalized wellness routines but needs simple and efficient solutions.
Frustrations with Healthcare - Amanda has had personal health problems with headaches and fatigue that she claims have not been adequately addressed in her experiences with the professional/medical field. She is concerned with side effects of prescription drugs and has an increased trust in alternative medicine, natural products and food as medicine. She believes that an integrated healthcare system is essential in order to address both prevention and treatment of illness and disease.
She finds that conventional approaches to health are not enough - her children frequently come home from school with viruses that require not only traditional OTC products to relieve symptoms, but Amanda has adopted echinacea and vitamin C to supplement the entire family's diet and boost their immune system.
Loss of Control - art of adopting alternative approaches means taking care of one's health and contributing to solutions for the entire family's health (spouse, children, parents). There are multiple social forces (work, school, television, advertising) that dictate how and what Amanda should and can do. Inside the home she feels that she is in control of what her family eats, takes and does in relation to their health and well being.
Transformative Life Experience - Amanda has been extremely influenced by her mother's breast cancer. She also lost her father to heart disease when she was 21 years old. Both of these events catapulted Amanda into researching preventive approaches to health that she ordinarily would not seek. Amanda has since adopted preventive behavior for heart disease and breast cancer that she is very unlikely to discontinue. She buys organic foods when possible, takes antioxidants and vitamin E, quit smoking, does self exams and annual doctor's visits, and tries to get regular exercise with her children, while she decreases her stress at her weekly yoga class on Wednesday evenings.

What does this information tell you? Consider that shopping for health and wellness products and services is not an exclusively individual act, nor is it just a thing in itself. Rather, it is a social ritual developed around the shopper and particular relationships with other individuals such as a partner or a child. Women choose brands and products that reveal aspects of their relationships and that represent their approach to health and wellness.

Products and brands can be seen as signs that reveal things about a woman's behavior in health and wellness based on her level or intensity of involvement, knowledge state, responsibility, concern or love for others, and her desire to address long-term issues surrounding the health and well being of herself and other family members. While there may be similar social and/or cultural influences that drive a woman's behavior; that is not to say that all women shop the same. There are differences in the experience of shopping based on demographics such as age, ethnicity or class, lifestage or lifestyle differences, as well as the various genres of shopping experience such as the neighborhood farmers' market to the club store.

Despite the multitude of ways to slice and dice women's consumption behavior, we have found a consistent theme in that women of all lifestages (time of life) and lifestyles (way of life) resonate to "health" and "wellness." In our research, most women say they would like to live a "healthier lifestyle" by purchasing "healthier" foods (ranging anywhere from low cholesterol to unprocessed or organic), taking supplements, getting regular exercise and rest, and taking proactive and preventive measures for their family's and their own health and well being. The word "wellness" tends to be equated with overall well being, which includes the mind, emotions and spirit. Women express their desires by selecting brands and products that are not only perceived as efficacious, educative and responsible, but that are uplifting, empowering and indulgent. Essentially, brands and products that communicate these and other aspects of health and wellness represent a sense of balance and well being.

To conclude, our ethnographic fieldwork has been used to examine women's wellness shopping behavior as an expression of individual subjectivity based on health concerns and conditions as well as serving as an expression of kinship and other social relationships. Understanding that women's wellness behaviors are driven not only by conditions of her lifestage (e.g., menopause) but by her lifestyle (e.g., as a nurturer) will paint a more complete picture for manufacturers and retailers in identifying new ways to communicate, offer solutions and create their own relationships with today's women's wellness consumer.

Stay tuned for Part III of this three-part series, where we examine what channel criteria women use for selecting wellness products in: Women's Wellness: Finding Health & Wellness in the Store.

Click here for

PART ONE: Women's Wellness: What Drives Wellness Shopping Behavior

Comment »