IRI Provides Actionable Insights into $400 Billion Self-Care Industry, Enabling Marketers to Unlock Personalization Opportunities

IRI’s In-Depth Analysis of Self-Care Industry Uncovers a Number of Very Distinct Self-Care Consumer Segments and Provides New Opportunities for Personalized Consumer Activation Plans to Drive Growth

CHICAGO--()--To provide marketers with a far better understanding of consumers’ motivations, behaviors and purchases in the burgeoning $400 billion self-care industry, IRI® has developed a unique segmentation of the market, finding that there are eight distinct consumer profiles that manufacturers and retailers can target for personalized activation.

Self-care is a pervasive and growing consumer lifestyle, characterized by the increasingly holistic approach today’s shoppers take toward optimizing their health. IRI has found that self-care purchase behavior varies considerably based on an individual’s demographics, motivation for self-care, and attitude toward food, exercise, over-the-counter (OTC) medications, nutritional products, personal care/beauty products, home care products, doctor recommendations and technology — creating tremendous opportunities for marketers across multiple categories to cater to consumers’ distinct self-care perspectives.

“Fueled by rising health care costs and economic uncertainty, Americans are taking health and wellness into their own hands,” said Robert J. Sanders, executive vice president and Health Care Practice leader for IRI. “IRI’s groundbreaking research shows self-care consumers view traditionally discrete categories, such as food, OTC drugs, vitamins, supplements and personal care, as more complementary in achieving their health goals. Blurred category lines and a larger competitive landscape present difficulties for marketers who don’t have a clear picture of the motivations, values and behaviors of their customers.”

“Given the multiple facets of an individual’s health that shape their decisions about self-care, personalized consumer targeting is essential,” said Robert I. Tomei, president of Consumer & Shopper Marketing for IRI. “IRI’s new segmentation provides the only deeply personalized framework — combining attitudinal, behavioral and demographic information along with IRI’s extensive shopper data. Armed with this new understanding, IRI can help companies develop targeted activation plans to realize the greatest return on their marketing spend.”

The Eight Distinct Self-Care Segments

IRI’s research revealed the following eight self-care consumer segments:

  • Proactive Naturalists: Take proactive measures to keep fit, manage stress and maintain a balanced lifestyle. They are young and affluent and look for products that offer natural or organic ingredients. (12 percent of consumers)
  • Active Health Managers: Focused on minimizing healthcare costs, they are quick to treat themselves and their families with OTC medications recommended by trusted websites when health issues arise to avoid costly trips to the doctor. (8 percent of consumers)
  • Awakened and Dedicated: Experienced health scares that drove them to focus diligently on their health. They are middle-aged and spend heavily on consumer health care products despite being in a lower-income bracket. (11 percent of consumers)
  • Unconcerned Realists: Take a “wait and see” approach to their health, preferring to treat minor, infrequent ailments with OTC medicines to minimize trips to the doctor. (9 percent of consumers)
  • Healthy Passives: Unmotivated to engage with self-care. They feel calm about their ability to care for their health and tend not to spend much on OTC medicines. (20 percent of consumers)
  • Preventive Moderates: Proactive about staying fit as they age. They spend heavily on vitamins and supplements and take prescription drugs when needed, but take a relaxed approach to their eating and exercise habits. (13 percent of consumers)
  • Advice Seekers: Require the frequent reassurance of a doctor, finding it difficult to manage their health problems on their own. Now of retirement age, they feel prescription medicines are the most effective way to stay well. (15 percent of consumers)
  • Doctor, Doctor!: Impacted by the negative effects of aging, they react to myriad health issues using vitamins, OTC medicines and prescription drugs, in frequent consultation with their doctors, and focus on managing their weight. (12 percent of consumers)

IRI’s research demonstrates the broad spectrum of consumer engagement with self-care. The 360-degree segmentation was developed using a demographically balanced pool of respondents and drew on unique attitudinal, behavioral and actual purchase data.

For more information about IRI’s self-care consumer segmentation, please contact Carl Edstrom at Carl.Edstrom@IRIworldwide.com.

About the IRI Partner Ecosystem

IRI fundamentally believes that delivering differentiated growth for clients requires deep, highly integrated partnering with a variety of best-of-breed companies. As such, IRI works closely with a broad range of industry leaders to create innovative joint solutions, services and access to capabilities to help its clients more effectively compete in their various markets and exceed their growth objectives. IRI is committed to its partnership philosophy and continues to actively enhance its ecosystem of partners through alliances, joint ventures, acquisitions and affiliations. The IRI Partner Ecosystem includes such companies as Adobe, The Boston Consulting Group, comScore, Experian, GfK, Gigwalk, GuestMetrics, Ipsos, Kantar Shopcom, MasterCard Advisors, MaxPoint, Millward Brown Digital, Mu Sigma, Oracle, Place IQ, Research Now, Simulmedia, SPINS, Survey Sampling International, Univision and others.

About IRI

IRI is a leading provider of big data, predictive analytics and forward-looking insights that help CPG, OTC health care organizations, retailers and media companies to grow their businesses. With the largest repository of purchase, media, social, causal and loyalty data, all integrated on an on-demand, cloud-based technology platform, IRI helps to guide its more than 5,000 clients around the world in their quests to remain relentlessly relevant, capture market share, connect with consumers and deliver market-leading growth. A confluence of major external events — a revolution in consumer buying, big data coming into its own, advanced analytics and automated consumer activation — is leading to a seismic shift in drivers of success in all industries. Ensure your business can leverage data at www.IRIworldwide.com.

Contacts

IRI
Shelley Hughes
E-mail: Shelley.Hughes@IRIworldwide.com
Phone: +1 312.474.3675

Contacts

IRI
Shelley Hughes
E-mail: Shelley.Hughes@IRIworldwide.com
Phone: +1 312.474.3675