Marketing dietary supplements is not the same as it used to be—here’s why

A new era of chewies, sachets and flavours is breathing fresh life into a fatigued industry

“Sleeping like a baby is not just for babies anymore,” proclaims a bold blurb for Welly’s Restful Sleep Gummies. Between the saturated hues, whimsical doodles and quirky catchphrases on the packaging, it’s deceptively easy to forget what you are actually purchasing: a dietary supplement for inducing sleep. It is a brave move, radical even, for an industry that has conventionally been painted with the same brush as pharmaceuticals—prescription-based products with convoluted scientific names that plod along in humdrum monotones.

But fast-forward to the present day, and you’ll find that the vegan gummies brand is just one of the many new-age offerings disrupting the industry, expertly remoulding the almost-medicinal nature of supplements into a user-driven experience that knows which itch to scratch for a generation of digital-first natives. Not a fan of popping pills? Look for easy on-the-go sachets that can be drizzled over your morning smoothie. A little iffy about the taste of supplements? Allow yourself to be tempted into chewy gummies for an après-dinner snack. With interactive quizzes and modern marketing mechanisms, you might as well be shopping for a pair of must-have sneakers, not a dietary supplement weighed down with science-y words like L-Theanine and lactobacillus. So what is ushering in the winds of change? We meet some of the names overhauling the age-old supplements industry.

Old rulebooks don’t work

For Urvi Raghbeer, founder and CEO of Welly Gummies, the dissonance comes from the pharmaceutical treatment afforded to a habit-building category. She explains, “The current perception of supplements makes one feel like they are taking a medicine or need a cure, making the overall experience that of a patient. However, people do want to change habits and get healthier but the available options aren’t desirable and lead to a less indulgent experience.” She also rues the traditional method of marketing supplements by instilling fear of the problem, instead of focusing on the solution and benefits.

For many brands like Welly Gummies, the dietary supplement market was waiting to be disrupted. For Ameve Sharma, co-founder of Kapiva, it was essential to capitalise on the growing ownership of personal health. “Preventative healthcare is increasingly becoming the go-to option in the aftermath of the pandemic. Supplements are no longer perceived as medicinal alternatives but rather as a lifestyle choice enabling people to take care of their own health,” he says. Raghbeer agrees, adding, “There is a growing focus on following a healthy lifestyle but the customers’ needs were not being met. The monotonous and stagnant nature of products in the form of pills and syrups did not excite anybody to stick to their supplement routine. The problem was clear—people want to take up supplements but avoid doing so because it makes them feel like a patient.”

On the other side of the table, brands haven’t been benefiting from the old ways either, believes Siddharth Arora, founder of Pure Cure + Co. “The conventional marketing method was simply not dynamic. It is a black hole of ad spend, and the returns of the same are not quantifiable. You neither know how many people are seeing your ad, nor what percentage of your sales are stemming from these static ads,” he explains.

The new era of marketing dietary supplements

With all factions of the industry in consensus that an upgrade to the age-old marketing model has been long overdue, a new dawn has ushered into the supplements landscape. For Welly, this meant bringing about a paradigm change in communication by talking about health and happiness together. “Having a strong tone of voice and visual identity has been a huge factor in pushing customers to take the first step of trying our products. Tapping into micro- and nano-influencers who truly believe in the product has also helped the brand,” divulges Raghbeer.

For Kapiva’s range of Ayurveda-driven nutritional products, this meant putting its ancient wisdom into the hands of the new generation of consumers. “If you are catering to Gen Z and millennials, you are in the race to ensure you are providing the most value to your consumer. Content can, then, be an important differentiator for start-ups looking to compete with established brands. In an attempt to aid the same, we are doubling down on our health tech offering, with a doctor’s consultation and diet plans to add value to our overall offering in this cluttered space,” shares Sharma.

At the end of the day, according to Arora, the biggest learning has been that a one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t work for marketing supplements. “We have seen brands that use clean lines and modern fonts and we have seen brands with traditional motifs, and both work well. If you have an accurate representation of your target audience in front of you, you will know what kind of marketing methods to opt for. Remember to ensure that you are leveraging the right platform where your customers are, so you will not waste time going after everyone,” he concludes.

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