Marketing advice: Promote long-term gut health goals to improve results and retention
Experts in the field of the microbiome discussed the rising spread of miscommunication on the topic during a panel at Probiota hosted by NutraIngredients in Milan (7-9thâ February).
Consumer confusionâSophie Medlin, consultant dietician and head of nutritional research at Heights, noted the prevalence of patients suffering from gut issues such as colitis, Crohnâs disease, and IBS, with many questioning the array of contradictory advice they have seen online.
âPeople mostly come to me just for general gut health advice. Theyâre always asking, how do I know whatâs right for me, how do I cut through the noise I hear online,â Medlin said. âThey donât know what to doâŠ
âThe work that Iâm doing in clinic is very much tailoring the wider public messaging on gut health to individuals to what suits their body and doesnât affect their digestion and cause symptoms for those suffering from conditions such as IBD,â she added.
Medlin emphasised that it was critical for messaging not to contribute to rising âhealth anxietyâ resultant from fearmongering spread by social media. She said wording should be positive with advice focussing on what people can do and how they can feel as a result.
âThe information thatâs available is so vast which is what makes it really difficult for people to navigate. They are getting it from so many different places, they just donât know where to go for trusted information.
âAnd the information that theyâre getting is incredibly conflicting. I think we all have a responsibility to find some centre that weâre giving to people in our marketing communications.â
She added that she often sees patients who have spent large amounts of money on supplements unsuitable for their unique situation, which were purchased as a result of misleading online information.
Federica Amati, head nutritionist at Zoe, drew attention to recent calls for health professionals to produce social media content to help reduce the confusion and spread real science on the topic.
She has therefore joined the TikTok platform in an aim to help spread science backed nutrition advice and dispel some of the nonsense.
“Health care professionals now are very open to working with brands to help amplify the messaging, and to help company’s understand the science behind what you’re doing to help move the whole field forward,” Amati stressed. “So it’s a nice bidirectional relationship.”
Layering products with lifestyleâPanellists agreed that messaging should also focus on the lifestyle factors that are important for gut health.
âYou canât just take a probiotic within a very restricted diet, with high amounts of stress, with no exercise,â Medlin pointed out.
âEven if lifestyle advice isnât appealing to marketing and budget targets, we need to go into this with an open heart offering education, in order for people to find our products actually useful and improve long-term gut health,â she added.
She said consumers are often not aware that supplements take a long time to work and will stop taking them after a few weeks. She said further brand engagement would encourage the use of the product over a longer period and increase the likelihood that customer will feel the benefits.
âWe also need to be differentiating between general gut health and people that have problems with gut function. So, prebiotics have a great place for people who donât have a gut function problem, as we know they cause adverse symptoms in these people.
âWe know thereâs a problem here, as people are promoting such products into the IBS market for example. And then product reviews will be bad. These products should be promoted for people wanting to generally improve their gut health.
Amati added that supplement brands often promote unrealistic health outcomes and products should be layered with health and lifestyle advice.
âWe need to market products responsibly and be clear about what they do and not hyperinflate the benefits,â she said. âFor example, when products falsely claim they can help people struggling with mental health issues, this is really unfair without addressing other contextual issues and causes more distress to the people that need our help the most.â
Regulatory challengesâDr. Luis Gasalbez, managing director of Sandwalk, noted the rising prevalence of unauthorised health claims and references to disease across online platforms promoting biotics.
âWe need to harmonise the use of claims and the terminology we use, including pre-, pro-, and post-biotics,â he asserted. âAnd we need to find a way to enforce regulations, as itâs not currently working.â
Alana Kempner, founder and CEO of The Gut Stuff, said that consumers are also unaware of the marketing and claim limitations for biotics, which added to the continued confusion.
âItâs crazy that consumers are looking for probiotic products but arenât allowed to be sold a probiotic by name,â Medlin added. âBut you can add nutrients like vitamins and minerals which you can legally make claims for, and terms like âbioticâ for consumers to understand what youâre alluding to.â
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