In a striking display of the power of consumer-driven healthcare, Hims & Hers Health Inc. recently reported extraordinary growth in their weight management program. Launched just seven months ago, the program has already attracted nearly 100,000 subscribers and is on track to generate $100 million in annual revenue. This rapid success underscores a significant shift in how consumers approach healthcare, particularly in the weight loss sector, and speaks volumes about the growing demand for accessible, consumer-friendly solutions.
At Shapiro + Raj, we’ve been studying this trend. We watched how the social buzz around GLP-1s blurred the lines between the medical and consumer markets. We wanted to better understand the consumers in this marketplace and conducted research in a very different way to answer two big questions:
- What are the different types of potential weight loss patients?
- How, if at all, are these consumer-led patients different from the traditional patient?
Using advanced AI techniques along with traditional segmentation principles, we’ve uncovered insights that help explain the success of approaches like Hims & Hers. We began with a comprehensive examination of social media data, including platforms like Twitter, Reddit, and Tumblr. We analyzed mentions of GLP-1 brand names for the attitudes and approaches to weight loss expressed by potential users. From there, we used our strategic perspective, segmentation best practices, and our AI Agent, Stella.ai to help us build a human-led market landscape.
Our work revealed five distinct segments within the weight loss market:
- Aging Health Centered: Individuals proactively addressing potential health risks caused by weight.
- Comorbid Concerned: Those looking to lose weight to ease or benefit their health conditions.
- Try-Anything Cyclers: Individuals who have tried and failed with traditional weight loss methods and have become jaded but desperate.
- Cosmetic Focused: Those motivated primarily by aesthetics and societal pressure.
- Trend Followers: Those intrigued by social media and celebrity endorsements, not wanting to be left behind.
To gain deeper insights, we created dynamic “avatars” for each segment – this means we created AI synthetic personas of built from the social data. We brought these avatars into a ‘focus group’ and posed questions about their attitudes towards and usage of weight loss products.
From the beginning it was clear that some segments think like traditional patients, but others responded much more like consumers. Particularly interesting was how these segments differ in their approach to obtaining weight loss treatments. While some, like the Comorbid Concerned, still rely heavily on traditional medical channels, others are more open to alternative routes. For instance, the Cosmetic Focused and Trend Follower segments expressed openness to obtaining GLP-1 medications through non-traditional channels, such as online health, med spas, or even influencer connections. Further, both Cosmetic Focused and Trend Followers don’t even think of weight as ‘condition’ to manage – rather than seeing themselves as ‘sick’ patients, they view themselves as purchasing something to help them achieve their health and wellness goal.
These insights help explain why Hims & Hers’ direct-to-consumer model has been so successful. It is reflection of their deep understanding of evolving consumer needs and preferences in the healthcare landscape. Hims & Hers does more than lower the access barrier, it provides a experience that is consumer-led and isn’t governed by the traditional doctor – patient power dynamics. By offering their weight loss solutions more as lifestyle products rather than purely medical treatments, they’ve tapped into the segments we discovered who are seeking a more consumer like approach and who may not see themselves as patients in the traditional sense.
Ultimately, the success of companies like Hims & Hers in the weight loss market is just the beginning. For healthcare brands, the implications are clear: success in this new landscape requires a deep understanding of patient-customers and the ability to meet them where they are. This means not only developing effective treatments but also considering factors like ease of access, user experience, and marketing approaches that resonate with different consumer segments. Brands across the healthcare spectrum need to be vigilant in deeply understanding their patient-customers and the evolving market dynamics.
Hims & Hers serves as a powerful case study in the potential of consumer-centric healthcare. By looking at the marketplace as broader than traditional health care channels and seeing people only as patients, companies can not only drive growth but also improve health outcomes for all.
To learn more about these segments and how you can build a landscape segmentation using secondary data sources, reach out to [email protected]