Our world increasingly feels more focused on health and well-being – just consider the current non-alcoholic beverage craze (which shows no signs of slowing down).
And where there is health-mindedness, there are supplements.
This category used to be defined by performance-enhancing supplements, which always felt a little out of my purview as a consumer – I haven’t had a gym membership since college. But the supplement space has changed so much in the past 5-10 years, both in the product itself, and the marketing of it.
According to New Hope Network, hydration lead the category last year, with 49% of supplement sales, followed by performance-enhancing at 31.9%. Energy support clocked in at 6.3%, and digestive health at 3.8%. But there are so many new up-and-coming categories that will begin to take up a greater market share in the coming years. Those include:
- Sleep and dream support
- Mood, stress, and mental wellbeing
- Sharp-mindedness
- Hormone support (especially for females)
- Skin health
And the marketing of these products doesn’t follow the same design vibe that glistened the shelves at GNCs throughout the early aughts. (Think: those giant protein powder jugs, emblazoned with bold slanted letters in tones of black, gray, and red, with metallic accents.) Supplement brand design these days is a lot more refined and minimalistic.
There’s a growing trend towards lifestyle brand packaging blending into décor. Long gone are the days of multi-colored One-A-Day labels cluttering up our counters. Now consumers want simplicity, which is omnipresent when considering the top performing new supplement brands, such as Ritual, Vital Proteins, and Athletic Greens.
But simple doesn’t mean bland. Supplement brands still needs a distinct personality, which registers through thoughtfully chosen fonts, colors, graphics, and the size and placement of these items. In fact, creating a simplistic brand can sometimes be more challenging – the components that make up the brand must be even more carefully curated, since there are less graphics doing the talking.
We love a good supplement design challenge – let us know if you’ve got one, we’d love to chat about it!
