Science and sensibility

How consumer health leaders turn evidence, experience, and emotion into a lasting growth engine.

Over the past few years, we have seen tech, retail, and legacy consumer brands declare health central to their future, while pharma players sharpen their consumer focus, and consumers everywhere clamour for greater control over their own health. The shift is real and could not be further from a short-lived ‘Covid blip’ – it is here to stay and accelerating.

It is also clear by now that consumer healthcare does not follow either the pharma or consumer playbook, but is instead its own category – and the wave of big pharma companies spinning off their consumer health divisions into separately managed entities tells the story, from Haleon to Kenvue to Opella.

You may be a legacy pharma player moving into consumer, a legacy consumer player scaling into health, or a leader in another space considering the health boom’s impact on your future market position – in this article, we share our key practical learnings for leaders looking to tap into the consumer health opportunity for future growth.

Defining the consumer health opportunity

So, what does it actually take to lead in consumer health? First up, we need to define it: when we say consumer health here, we mean self-directed healthcare – regulated, evidence-led products, services, and experiences that people choose and use without a prescription to prevent, diagnose, and manage everyday health needs, where outcomes depend on behaviour and are delivered in daily life.

A few reasons why consumer health matters right now:

Demand is moving quickly: Longevity ambitions, an increasing consumer desire to take control of their own health, metabolic health (the GLP-1 halo), at-home diagnostics, and a women’s health renaissance are expanding categories and raising the bar for fast, tangible outcomes.

AI is accelerating self-guided health behaviours: Consumers now have an always-on alternative to traditional recommender pathways that sits in their pocket, needs no scheduling or insurance, and listens for as long as they like. Hoping to redirect consumers into healthcare professional (HCP) practices or warning them of dangers is not a strategy – every brand with a health stake must be ready for this new reality.

Trust and recommendation still shape choices, and not just where they used to: Consumers want clinical proof and depend on HCP endorsements (online and on pack – not only in the doctor’s practice or pharmacy), even in spaces like skin- or haircare that used to be less dependent on this. At the same time, ad signals are decaying and acquisition costs are rising.

Scale requires omnichannel fluency: HCPs influence what people choose, marketplaces determine who gets found, and direct-to-consumer channels power subscriptions and services and are crucial for gathering insights.

Six learnings to build compounding growth

The organisations growing consistently do not owe their growth to outshouting their competitors. Instead, they are engaging employees, partners, and consumers around a clear, empathy- and outcome-anchored brand promise; defining roles for each channel; measuring real incremental impact; protecting pricing and margin integrity; and making it easy for consumers to stick to a protocol – so that outcomes and lifetime value compound. Here are six key disciplines to master as a future consumer health leader:

1) Outcomes with empathy: The consumer health brand dual engine

In all categories, brands perform best when they combine emotional brand building (to create mental availability and pricing power) with functional reasons to believe (to convert and defend).

But no other space is as deeply functional and at the same time as deeply personal as health, so it is also uniquely unforgiving: if you lack function, you do not just lose trust, you invite regulators; if you lack emotion, people do not start or stay on the protocol, making outcomes fail and real-world proof erode.

So, to win in consumer healthcare, brands need to strike the perfect balance between empathy and evidence. They must make people feel seen while delivering measurable outcomes, publish proof at every touchpoint, and design for adherence. That dual engine of heart and head turns trust into repeat and growth.

Example: Sanofi’s Allegra, an OTC antihistamine positioned on non-drowsy allergy relief. Their “Drowsy Prompts” campaign, boasting a +340% above-average view-through rate on paid TikTok, contrasted the answers AI bots gave when prompted to perform everyday activities “on” sedating antihistamines (drowsy) with those they gave when prompted to be taking Allegra (sharp). This turned the non-sedating benefit into something you can feel, and feel good about, in an instant. It blends empathy (the everyday cost of drowsiness, delivered with cultural wit) with rigor (a proven non-sedating profile), converting a functional edge into a memorable reason to switch – and stick.

2) Brand trust is a system, not a slogan

A brand is more than a campaign. It is the external shorthand for strategy and culture – past and future – compressed into a relevant, differentiating, and distinctly executed promise. Brands that get this right are trusted – and with that, they consistently have lower CAC, higher retention, and are able to command better prices. In consumer health, this trust depends on an operating system people can see and feel:

• Scientific: Clear claims with independent proof that consumers understand and HCPs can get behind.
• Emotional: Human, empathy-led storytelling, consistent journeys, experiences, and communities.
• Clinical/HCP influence: HCPs as a managed channel and credibility system across clinics, pharmacies, telehealth, social, and on‑pack endorsements.
• Operational: Reliable quality and availability, traceability to source, and privacy by design.

What to do:

• Be honest about who your brand is serving and what distinct, relevant benefits it delivers, and ask: do your organisation, HCPs, and consumers actually know and agree on this? You cannot win without a clear target and brand position.
• Build for trust in today’s reality. OTC choices still often depend on HCP recommendation, but not on in-person interaction – with GenAI, the self-guided consumer is here to stay. Build and collaborate with HCPs to enable safe self-guided behaviour – do not try to stifle it.
• Codify claims, imagery standards, and HCP education content and moderate UGC responsibly.
• Publish “how we test” and outcome views that are simple and credible.
• Standardise supplier audits and traceability; enforce privacy requirements.

Example: Take Haleon’s growth engine Sensodyne: The brand has carved out a global leadership position in sensitive oral care, a category it helped establish, grounded in strong consumer insights. Underpinned by science and professional endorsement, Sensodyne’s professional sites disclose claim support and guidance – making trust visible to both clinicians and consumers.

3) Omnichannel roles – clarity beats conflict

Set clear jobs for DTC, retail/pharmacy, and HCPs so channels amplify, rather than cannibalise. Architect packs, claims, and price bands per role, align retail media to incrementality, and treat pharmacy/HCPs as trust engines that drive initiation and adherence:

• DTC: subscriptions, personalisation, service, and insight.
• Retail & marketplaces: Reach, discoverability, and easy replenishment.
• Pharmacy: credibility, guidance, and regimen initiation.
• HCPs: Guidance, trust-building, regimen initiation, and adherence.

Translate roles into action:

• Localise formats by market; structure and design packs and claims per role.
• Set price bands and guardrails by channel – and only run retail ads or promotions if tests show they create incremental sales, not just shift them around or cheapen the brand.
• Create joint retailer plans with shared sell-through goals, while treating pharmacy as a trust-building and credibility touchpoint, not just a point of sale.

Example: Hims & Hers built a DTC telehealth, subscription, and personalisation engine, then placed hero SKUs selectively in mass retail for reach – scaling revenue to $246.6m in Q2 2024 (+63% YoY).

4) Media and promotions – allocate capital to measured impact

Trade myth for math. Balance brand and activation with positive ESOV, use MMM and geo‑tests to fund what truly lifts sales, and treat PDPs (product detail pages), reviews, and short‑form video as core media – balancing retail media with creators and owned audiences:

• Give your marketing spend a reality check grounded in consumer goods and IPA growth evidence: are you investing enough in brand building and building excess share of voice?
• When considering your allocations, use marketing mix modelling (MMM) and geo experiments to inform approvals.
• Treat product detail pages, reviews, and shortform video as core media assets on marketplaces.
• Balance retail media with creators/affiliates and owned audiences that you nurture.

Example: Marketplace execution matters. Brands that consistently win treat PDPs, ratings/reviews, and video as media. Unilever’s nutrition and supplements brand Olly is frequently cited for PDP excellence and review ecosystems that support rank and conversion (referenced across retail media case libraries and investor commentary).

Note: specific growth metrics for Olly vary by market/period; the execution principles are broadly documented across marketplace best practice sources.

5) Pricing and margin discipline – price with intent, protect contribution

Price is a system, not a sticker. Build a consumer health NRM engine (Net Revenue Management) that aligns price, pack, mix, promo, and trade terms across DTC, retail, and markets. Use corridors, MAP, and incrementality tests to lift AOV/LTV, block arbitrage, and protect realised margin and trust:

• Price architecture: Define good/better/best tiers and regional price corridors; set Minimum Advertised Price (MAP)/guardrails by channel to prevent undercutting and grey‑market leakage.
• Pack/assortment mix: Ladder trial, standard, and value bundles; design refill/subscription packs to lift AOV and retention; differentiate DTC vs. retail packs to fit channel roles.
• Promo discipline: Approve discounts only with proven incremental lift (geo‑tests/MMM); prioritise value‑adds (bundles, refills, services) over deep cuts; cap promo frequency to protect reference price.
• Trade terms: Align retailer terms and retail media to shared sell-through goals; pay for performance, not presence; enforce price integrity clauses across borders.
• Mix and innovation: Use claims and formats that trade consumers up (e.g., protocols, clinician‑lite add‑ons); monitor product and channel mix to maintain positive contribution.

Example: Therabody pairs corridor pricing with device + consumable bundles and limited, test‑backed promos to protect contribution across regions. Hims & Hers differentiates DTC subscriptions from retail hero SKUs, enforces MAP, and gates discounts by measured lift, raising AOV/LTV while preserving price integrity.

6) Customer experience and adherence – design for outcomes and retention

Outcomes compound when people stay on protocol. Offer simple personalisation tiers, clear time‑to‑benefit, education and nudges, community, and clinician‑lite support – localised for language, payments, and service – to turn trust into repeat business and LTV:

• Offer simple personalisation tiers with clear time-to-benefit.
• Bundle protocols with education and nudges; add community features and clinician-lite programmes where relevant.
• Localise languages, payments, and service.

Example: Natural Cycles is an FDA‑cleared digital birth control app that turns daily behaviour into outcomes: users log temperature and cycle data, and the app guides protocol adherence with clear, stigma‑sensitive UX and evidence‑based recommendations. The company publishes peer‑reviewed research and maintains a medical board, making proof accessible while the subscription model and nudges support ongoing use – linking experience to adherence and outcomes.

Practical moves over the next 12 months

• Put brand trust first: clarify your brand strategy and positioning, including your level of health equity, and codify the trust system (proof, operations, experience – across consumers and HCPs) with a scorecard; align internal and external expression.
• Embed the brand throughout your organisation: establish activation programmes enabling positioning and distinctive asset fluency and brand-led decision-making across all markets and teams, from R&D to frontline sales.
• Define channel roles: DTC for subscriptions/insight; retail/pharmacy for reach; HCPs for trust and adherence. Align assortments, claims, price bands, and promotion rules.
• Measure reality: re-balance your spend to match your consumer health ambitions, complement last-click attribution with MMM and geo-experiments; set lift thresholds for retail media and promotions; upgrade marketplace content and ethical review velocity.
• Protect economics: enforce price architecture by channel/pack; maintain cross-border price integrity; gate promotions based on proven incrementality; and dual-source key inputs.
• Design for adherence: onboarding and nudges that make staying on protocol easy; simple personalisation tiers and clinician-lite programmes where relevant.

Where to start: Answering key questions

The right path for your brand depends on where you stand today. But we recommend you start by answering these key questions:

1. Diagnose and align

• Who exactly are our priority consumers and HCPs – and what jobs‑to‑be‑done and category entry points are we competing for?
• What are our brand equities (internal view vs. in-market perception) - and does our whole organization know and build towards them?
• What levels of salience, preference, adherence, and HCP recommendation are we achieving?
• Are we delivering on the dual engine (empathy plus outcomes) – with clarity on both the emotional and functional outcomes we deliver, a clear messaging and claims ladder, published proof, and consumer adherence?

2. Strategise

• What is our outcome‑anchored brand positioning – and how will it guide brand architecture and innovation (where to stretch, where to stop)?
• What are the distinct channel roles for DTC, retail/pharmacy, and HCPs by region – with KPIs, assortment rules, and guardrails to prevent price and message conflict?
• What is our price‑pack architecture and channel promo policy (tiers, corridors, cross‑border controls) to protect realised price and value?

3. Activate

• How will we embed our consumer healthcare strategy across the organisation, enabling all teams to execute and make brand-led decisions?
• Which priority retailers will we build joint plans with – and how will we align retail media to shared sell‑through goals and tighten promo calendars to avoid cannibalisation?
• What DTC moves will raise lifetime value?
• How will we equip HCPs (education kits, sampling, social/KOL engagement) – and how will we measure recommendation, initiation, and adherence lift?

4. Scale

• What are the scale criteria for pilots (effect size, payback, operational/regulatory readiness) – and who owns rollout across regions/channels?
• How will we grow owned audiences (value exchange, consent, lifecycle, community/referrals) and prove impact on consumer acquisition cost and repeat?
• How will we publish trust and outcomes at scale (quality narratives, “how we test,” on‑pack/product detail pages QRs to evidence) without over‑claiming?

Final word

Consumer health is a booming space drawing both big competitors and disruptors alike, but only those who understand its unique requirements will be poised to win. There is a good reason why Haleon, Kenvue, or Sanofi’s Opella were spun out from their core pharma origins: Consumer healthcare is its very own space and must be managed as such – it needs pharma-grade evidence and governance, but wins with FMCG craft: sharp positioning, distinctive assets, clear channel roles, disciplined pricing, and measured media.

Run consumer health like pharma only and you are slow and invisible; run it like FMCG only and you are fluffy and non-compliant. Bolt the two together – building genuine brands with consumer and HCP relevance, infusing those brands throughout your entire business as your trust engine, publishing the proof, designing for adherence, and giving every channel a clear job – and trust turns into penetration, repeat, and margin.