Reading time: 8 min.
Below you'll find a brief summary of our conversation with Geert Serneels. You can listen to the full episode via Spotify & Apple Podcasts.
About Christophe Jauquet
Christophe Jauquet is a health marketing expert and author of the book "Healthusiasm, making customers healthy and happy", in which he talks about how health plays an ever more important role in our lives, how people aspire to be happy and healthier, and how businesses can help make those ambitions a reality. Christophe drew his inspiration for the book from his many years of experience working in and around health.
Healthusiasm, or being consciously engaged with your health
Today, more than ever, people are consciously and actively focused on their health and want to have an impact on it themselves. This trend has a huge impact on businesses, as consumers increasingly look for companies that can help them along the way.
Being consciously engaged with your health is actually nothing new - people have always cared about their health. But because there are far more ways nowadays (like digital tools, for example) to make an impact on your own health, awareness has picked up serious momentum.
Another key reason behind the growing awareness around health lies in the fact that, in our Western society, our basic needs are largely met, so people increasingly seek out self-fulfilment or self actualisation. People aim to enjoy life to the fullest, to be healthier and happier, and to become the best version of themselves.
Digital tools and Dr Google
Digital tools have helped people take control of their own health. One of the first digital tools were the work-out videos from the '80s - think Jane Fonda and neon leg warmers. Google gradually joined in too, an unmistakably endless source of information. In the early 2000s, Google already played a hugely important role by answering countless health-related questions, with mixed success at first, because consulting Dr Google is at your own risk, especially if you're a hypochondriac.
Later came mobile apps and wearables on top of that, and now we're entering a period where Artificial Intelligence (AI) is set to play a huge role.
We're seeing these tools evolve strongly into self-learning technological inventions that give us advice or reminders, influencing how people best manage their health.
Fake news
With Google, we have an endless source of information right at our fingertips, but is all that information actually reliable? Can you really trust all those claims, and how can you, as a consumer, see the wood for the trees when you're looking for reliable information about nutritious food, for example?
Some information is always better than none at all, but we need to keep educating ourselves to recognise reliable information. Companies can play an important role here. They know the product they bring to market better than anyone, so it's their responsibility to clearly communicate all its health aspects — because if someone else does it, it inevitably becomes vague and unclear.
Unfortunately, many companies make false claims about how nutritious their product is. That's why JustBite doesn't just offer nutritious snacks — we're also strongly committed to providing accurate, well-founded information about what's nutritious and what isn't, so consumers don't have to be misled by false claims on packaging, and can see the wood for the trees again.
More than prevention
There's a shift towards prevention, where people no longer wait until they're ill before taking action.
But it goes further than pure prevention. People are engaging with their health more often and more deeply, and there are different types of decisions they can make in that context:
- Medical decisions: when you're ill and you make certain decisions about your specific condition together with a doctor.
- Preventive or health-related decisions: decisions that stop your health from getting worse, like quitting smoking, for example.
- Well-being decisions: decisions to help you feel healthier and happier that are based less on science and more on feeling, like going to the sauna, for example.
- Decisions around lifestyle, interests and habits: in these areas too, people want to feel that they can be healthier and happier.
Being mindful of health is therefore not just about prevention. It's broader than that — it's about how people can optimise themselves and feel better.
And marketing loves to tap into this positive story, because more and more businesses are asking themselves how they can help people become the best version of themselves. They're going for healthusiasm: the enthusiasm for making people healthier.
Transformation
A digital transformation is happening on a massive scale, and on top of that comes the question: should every business be working to make its customers healthier? The answer isn't a simple yes, it needs some nuance. But it's a fact that every business must respond to people's self actualisation needs.
Customers have 3 big transformational needs:
- Ecology, sustainability and the planet
- Society
- Health
As a business, it's important to look at which of these 3 elements you can make an impact on.
The transformational need around health, for example, can be interpreted very broadly. A business that does right by the planet's health is also supporting society's health, and therefore the individual's health too. Health overlaps perfectly with caring for the planet.
One of JustBite's values is to contribute to a healthier society. Healthier snacks are one way to help individuals feel better, and by extension, society as a whole. Our food choices also have a huge impact on the planet. So thinking consciously about food can make a real difference to the bigger picture.
Healthier snacking taps into 3 big needs: the planet, society, and the individual.
Self actualisation across generations
Everyone wants self actualisation. People want to be healthier and happier, but every generation is in a different stage of life, so they'll have different aspirations.Â
If you're older, for example, you mainly want to keep enjoying life. If you're in a fast-growing career with a young family, you'll mostly want energy to be the best version of yourself.
Younger people, Gen Z, approach their health in a much more natural way. It's simply part of their lifestyle, because that's how they were raised. Older generations need to take more conscious steps towards their health.
We're in the middle of a huge shift that can't be stopped, partly thanks to Covid-19. People have wanted to do something about their health for a while now, and this is the perfect moment. Businesses too are focusing more than ever on health, looking at how they can transform their customers by offering experiences and services that make them feel better.
Employees are customers too
Customers are, above all, employees too. We spend a lot of time at work, and businesses, as employers, have an important role to play in their employees' health.
Businesses can play both an internal and an external role in this.
The internal role still mainly revolves around age-old workplace prevention. Businesses facilitate health with a decent chair, a computer screen set at the right height, and so on, so employees don't develop physical complaints. More and more, businesses are cautiously starting to offer well-being activities too. However, there's still tension in this internal role, because businesses aren't yet willing to go so far as to take responsibility for their employees' health, and they remain stuck in merely facilitating it.
Fortunately, a shift is happening because we now have the same expectations of the businesses we work for as we do as consumers. Namely, that we're offered services and products that are good for our health.
We increasingly expect our employer to meet these expectations, so we can feel better and become the best version of ourselves.
The external role of businesses is to enable employees to bring as much added value to their customers as possible. Make sure your employees feel they truly make a difference, and help them reconnect with the company's purpose. Because happy employees create happy customers. It's the people behind the business who make the difference.
It's no coincidence that JustBite's fourth value is 'Employees first'! We help businesses invest in happy employees so they can really make a difference. With more nutritious snacks and useful information, your business can truly make a difference across all 3 aspects: health, society and the planet.
Conclusion
It's important to think about how far health fits within your business's DNA, and to do this, you as a business need to think on 3 levels:Â
- Your customers' needsÂ
- Your customers' expectations
- The health aspect: what are people's aspirations, what do they want to achieve?
The needs, expectations and aspirations together go further than just the touch points customers have with your business, further than good customer service or a pleasant website. You need to ask yourself what added value you, as a business, bring to the lives of your customers, and whether you can fulfil those aspirations, whether in a small way or a big, consistent one.