State of Our Health - an Interview with Dr. Sarah Marion - Ep. 53

Foreign.

Welcome everybody to this edition of CPG Insiders. I'm your host, Dr. Mark Young and my co host, not a doctor, Justin Gerard.

Come on, man.

So we're going to have Doctor, Doctor, no doctor.

Thanks.

That's all right, folks. He's smarter than me anyway, so don't worry about it. So we're going to be talking to Dr. Sarah Marion.

Yes.

Now keep in mind that in both our cases it happens to be PhDs, not MDs. So we're not the kind of doctors that write drugs for you, but sometimes we can make you feel better just the same.

Yeah.

So you know, you don't have to have a prescription pad to do cool things. So we're going to talk about a lot of stuff today, right?

Yes.

All right, so. So tell us what's going on here, Justin.

Yeah. So super excited to have Dr. Marin on the show today. And what's, what's fantastic is that. And of course Dr. Marin is going to go a lot deeper into this. But at, at the Murphy Research center they are collecting an unbelievable amount of data with food and fitness trackers, which is incredible. So now we're getting real non biased data about what people do, how they act.

Like this thing on my wrist here.

And the one on mine. Right. So they're collecting all this data so we can really get a non biased understanding of what are people actually doing, how are they approaching their lives. And again, for me, I love this because in marketing and in advertising there's a lot of research and we get a lot of panel research and survey research which is okay, but there's always a little bit of, in my opinion and Dr. Marin will tell us there's always a little asterisk next to some of the data because we're asking people what they think and it's what they say and what they do are not always exactly the same. So I'm loving our opportunity right now. So again, Dr. Marion, thank you so much for being on the show with us today.

You're very welcome and please call me Sarah.

Sorry, Sarah.

So, Dr. Sarah.

Dr. Sarah. So Sarah, where I would love to, because I'm sure still a hot topic right now is of course Covid. Right. And just taking over our lives and our world for the last couple years.

Yeah, the economy hasn't recovered, people haven't recovered. I mean when we look at pre Covid versus post Covid psychological evaluations, we now see that 30% plus of the population is claiming anxiety. So I mean we were running, you know, single digit percentages now we're in the 30 percentage area for anxiety.

It's unbelievable.

And that's not counting, and I want people to understand that's not counting some of the COVID patients that have had psychological issues from COVID We're talking about the fear and the trauma and the staying at home and the kids out of school and all these things that has happened. So anyways, continue on.

Yeah. So Sarah, I guess with everything that you're doing right now, tell us a little bit about what are you seeing right now. What are some of the different trends and predictions that you can make from the data that you're collecting related to Covid?

Yeah, so we're seeing some. There are macro shifts, which I'll talk about in a moment. So large scale things that have happened that are different now from pre pandemic. But because we track data continuously, we also see, we can see each wave of the pandemic has been associated with a changes in behavior. So things have gone up and down in a really dynamic, volatile way that was just not true before. The tracker covers food, fitness and mindfulness. And so all of those have been really volatile. I mean, it's fascinating for me as a researcher, but it's kind of whiplash if you're just living it as I think many of us have felt. And I'm not surprised to hear that rise in anxiety because I think what all of those big shifts indicate is that people just, you don't know what's going on anymore. You know, I don't know if my kids are going to be in school next week. I don't know. Do I have to wear a mask now? We know cases are going back up, but it doesn't seem as bad as it was in January, but January was terrible. So it's just really been a wild ride, I think long term, so interesting month to month, but taking like the big sets of data into account, long term, we have seen some positive impacts. So I think particularly for CPG companies, more people now are engaged with nutrition than two years ago to the tune of about 12 million more people who were not really focused on eating healthy or shopping for healthy products before. That is great. The market is bigger. We've seen a deepening of engagement with health, not just nutrition, but across other areas. Too many more people have gotten involved with mindfulness. A lot more people now are meditating or doing stress reduction exercises, which again goes along with the mental health fallout from the pandemic. But that's been really like a nice, slow, steady rise, which those are great coping mechanisms, and they do impact the way that people eat and shop and exercise. So those are some of the really big shifts we've seen, which we can dig into as you guys. Like, we spent, like I said, a really interesting time.

Add something to that. And that is when we look at human needs, one of the really core human needs is certainty.

Yes.

Covid has removed that part, that element of human need, and that's why jump in anxiety. So when we think about CPG companies, I'm just throwing this out there for our audience. Think about it. How can your product, how can your message, how can your promise bring certainty back to an uncertain person?

Right.

What can you do that can bring certainty back? Now, by the way, one of the other key human needs is uncertainty. But uncertainty we need in a different area of our life. So uncertainty is what we want when we go on vacation, right?

Adventure, novelty.

Exactly. So we go on vacation, we embrace uncertainty because we're looking for new experiences. But in our daily life, we're looking for certainty.

Oh, 100%. And just look at what Sarah just talked about here. All of it is trying to get back that control, that security, gauging nutrition, healthier habits and fitness. Oh, now let's pay attention to my mental health. Now how can I gain control back? That's what all of these shits are.

Now, as you're seeing people increase their use of nutraceuticals and nutrition, how is that changing their food choices? Because I want to see, are people catching on that food is medicine, or are they trying to paper over a bad diet with some vitamins?

That's a great question. I think in some cases there is still plenty of papering over a bad diet with vitamins. But one thing we saw that tracks along with waves of the pandemic in terms of vitamins and supplements in particular, is shift away from just trying to make sure I cover all my bases toward more instrumental uses of supplements, so particularly boosting immunity. That doesn't necessarily mean that people are going out and looking the general population, I mean, going out and looking for specific specialized or trendy vitamins or supplements. They're just going out and getting more vitamin C. But the reason that they're doing it is this much more kind of instrumental intervention rather than the, as you said, the papering over, which is people's typical usage of vitamins. I think what we've seen in terms of the. These newly engaged nutrition consumers, they're not starting from scratch. Most of them are already engaged in fitness, and it's a trend that has been true across age groups, but it's concentrated among younger folks. So that's Gen Z, millennials and even Gen X to a certain extent. So they already had fitness habits and they're layering nutrition on top of them. So they're already kind of in the world. And that means that when we see that happen, fitness tends to drive some of those choices. But we also see them, they're not looking for these kind of specific tactical things that people used to do or that are associated with kind of a more of an older folks approach to nutrition. So it's among boomers. We still see a lot of I'm reducing cholesterol and I'm reducing sodium and I'm reducing sugar, but otherwise I'm eating the same things that I always do. Among these newly engaged consumers, it's more of a holistic change. So moving toward, I think some of that food is medicine approach, more interest in functional ingredients, more interest in plant based diets and reducing meat and dairy kind of consistently throughout the diet. I think it's about being healthier overall and recognizing that everything kind of fits together rather than the more instrumental tactical interventions of the past.

I find people confuse fitness and health very much.

They do.

A lot of people think fitness is health and it is not. It is not the same. You can still be able to run a marathon and eat like crap.

Yeah, absolutely.

If you're young enough and you still, you know, and you genetically happen to be able to do that.

Oh, absolutely. I mean, I mean, if any of our listeners are familiar with Ben Greenfield.

Right.

He went through the exact same thing. He's. I was one of the most fittest human beings on the planet. And then I finally looked into like, oh my gosh, I am not healthy at all, though. My body is a mess.

So case with a lot of people. So what are you seeing? So what are you seeing?

Change.

What's the, what's the biggest change that's jumped out at you over the past 30 months? 25. 30 months.

Wow, that is a big question. The increase in nutrition engagement has definitely been a big change. The increase in mindfulness, we weren't sure whether that would go away or turn into something that rises and falls seasonally. But the stickiness of mindfulness has been surprising to me. So once people adopt those behaviors, they stick with them, they like them, they.

Do them like app based things like calm or headspace or something.

A lot of it is app based. And I think that those apps have made mindfulness much more accessible. Than it used to be. This used to be a really esoteric trend and now suddenly everybody is doing it.

Be out meditating.

Yeah, you'd have to have super long hair and only wear sandals all the time.

Exactly, exactly. And so now everyone feels like that is something they need to add into their health regimen, even if they're not doing it every day. In terms of mindfulness, we did a deep dive on that relatively recently. And what we found is that people who are engaged in mindfulness really connected up to their other health behaviors. They say that it makes them more intentional and consistent about a healthy eating so less kind of giving in to temptation because now they have these coping mechanisms. So when things get tough, instead of stress eating, instead of having a few drinks at the end of the night, they have these other coping mechanisms. So good for health focused brands, maybe a little bit less good for some of those indulgences that people do like to turn to when they're feeling a little down. But they also are more willing to invest. So they show kind of a preference for quality over quantity and they spend more across all kinds of active nutrition categories. So if they things that will support their health goals, whether that is eating, fitness or again, the mindfulness component, they're willing to spend more money there. So these are discerning folks, but they're also very valuable.

So that's an important message there. Again, because that leans into CPG companies being willing to lean into making premium products.

Mm.

You've got more margin in the premium product. You can make more unique points of difference in the premium product. And it appears, listening to what you're saying, that if you have an indication or you have a deliverable in your premium product that can be qualified and quantified as something that's going to help people's health, then you might be onto something. The other reason I think the mindfulness has jumped up is when you look at Covid, the number two comorbidity for COVID deaths is anxiety. And interesting number one is obesity.

Yeah, I knew that one. I didn't know anxiety was the second one. Wow.

Anxiety is number two. And it's an actual area study. It's an area that I spend some time in. It's actually called psychoneuroimmunology. And it is the space where behavior, mindsets and thinking actually have effects on the immune system at the cellular level.

Yep. So the other interesting point I want to take away and I want our listeners to take away and maybe Sarah, you can expand on this more. Was there's a very important word that you use multiple times. Intentional. See, this is very interesting to me. When you're talking to these consumers, if they're living life with more intention, that means that they're making more conscious decisions. Which means not only as brands, when they're communicating to them, can they understand the framework in which that consumer and how they think in their worldview, that especially if you're in this nutritional space or you're in this fitness space, to understand that that consumer that you have is listening and they are paying attention and they are research and they're going to understand because this is unlike many other categories where a lot of the buying decisions are completely unconscious and it is your traditional programming. How many times can I get in front of them to program to buy my product? In these areas, some of our challenger brands have the opportunity that they don't have to rely so much on their media spend and frequency to drive the sale because these consumers are paying attention.

I'd agree with that.

So do you have any, do you have any data at all that would indicate how these new consumers, these 12 million new health consumers, how they go about learning about these products or services?

That's a great question. We do track sources of influence. It's pretty general, I would say. In addition to our quantitative research, we also do quarterly qualitative supplements. That's where I think we get more around the whys and hows, the nitty gritty of where people learn about these things. Because a lot of these newly engaged consumers are younger. A lot of that learning is happening online and it's difficult to track because it's influencers. On Instagram and TikTok, it's YouTube videos. They follow somebody for a few months, then they drop out and they follow somebody else. I think one of the more interesting trends and alarming ones that we've seen that is now well known is that young people, teens and young adults have really suffered in a distinctive, unique way during the pandemic. One of the things we've seen in the data is that their kind of real life sources of influence have gone down in importance while online ones have gone up. And I think this is probably not a good thing for them personally, but it does mean that there is more attention to that space, especially in social media if you're looking for places to get your products in front of those consumers.

Do you think these are people who talking as a CPG company, are these consumers people that I should be pushing my message at them? Or are these people who I should be helping them discover what my product can do, because it's a very different approach. Jam a TV commercial in front of you over and over, or I could kind of toss breadcrumbs around the Internet and let you discover me.

My gut says the second, because again, we're talking about younger consumers. We know that they resonate and are much more willing to watch or engage with content that feels natural and very good at tuning out ads. And if they get to see them at all. This is the savviest generation in terms of tech. And so it would be better to have your product kind of organically come up for them. Here's how you use it, here's what it's done for me, here's some other kinds of experiences and reviews. I think that that is much more compelling to millennials and Gen Z in particular than the traditional blast them with ads approach.

This would really, to me, this would indicate that for this particular part of the audience, that long form communications would probably make a lot more sense. And to add to what Dr. Sarah has been saying, so there's a trend, there is a trend in the marketplace caused by the Internet, which has made people believe they are smarter than they actually are. And in surveys, over 70% of Americans claim they are above average intelligence, which mathematically is absolutely impossible because otherwise average would have to move.

Yep.

So people believe they're smarter than they, than they really are. And the way to lean into this is to create content. When I say long form, I don't mean really long form. So I'm not talking about writing a book or making a documentary, but, you know, 500 to 1,000 word stories, five to eight minute videos to create content that allows people to learn a little bit more than they actually knew a moment ago. Not so much as to overwhelm them in data and to allow them to grab this snack of content and feel they are now smarter than they were five minutes ago. And to feel that I now know something that other people don't know. And my guess is what you're saying would probably lean into that being a good way to communicate to this particular demographic.

I think so. Especially if you can frame that knowledge and things they, they already know and believe. Right.

That's the scaffolding using language Right out of my most recent book, which is framing. And I talk to people. As far as we need to communicate to people. I always tell people to imagine there's a frame on the wall, a big picture frame, and inside that big picture frame is a visual of everything. That that consumer believes all of their values, all of their beliefs, all of their information is inside that picture frame. You need to figure out how to communicate to them inside of that frame. If you drift outside of that frame now, you don't have credibility. You're not in my universe of facts and my universe of belief. So we need to communicate to these people inside that framework.

Yes, that was actually right in my next question. So what a beautiful transition.

I'm here for you.

You're. You complete me. So what I wanted to ask next is it's based on that concept of truth. So based on all this data that you have and it seems like you're making a lot of different patterns, this consumer. Right. If they're mindfulness, they're more intentional which, and if they're in fitness, that means they're paying attention to what they're all these different things. So what would you say are some of those now truths that the data is saying that hey, this is how the consumer views their world or these are truths that they believe in as they're approached to their health, their lives, when they're making some of these choices?

Well, I think one is definitely people have come to a more holistic understanding of health. People have been saying that for a long time, but I think that the pandemic really made that true in a way that wasn't before. Part of it is the rise in mindfulness. Part of it was just being forced to have this space where you are separated from your normal life. I have heard over and over again countless interviews, people talking about I learned so much about myself, good and bad in this time. I had space to recognize what I really cared about and figure out how I wanted to go get those things. I think that that is a real and lasting change. Numbers wise in terms of what we measure in health and wellness, we have seen an expanding number of, of the consuming population actively engaged in what we call the three pillars of health, which is nutrition, mindfulness and fitness. Not just aspirations, but taking real action because they had the space to finally take action on things that they had always thought about or things that they had never had time to think about. Now obviously that's been balanced is not quite the right word. But all of the uncertainty, all of the changes in habits that have come also through the pandemic have been challenges to this new self knowledge. But I think that this is a really lasting long term consequence is this real holistic vision and action on health and the understanding of how my social life affects my fitness and how it affects my eating and how it affects my mental health. And what parts of that do I want to keep? What parts of that do, like, weren't actually something that I missed once they went away? Do I want to go out to eat as often as I was before? Do I feel better now that I am not going out to lunch every day? I had many people tell me that I used to eat out every day at lunch. It was a nice break from my office and I lost 10 pounds because I'm not doing that anymore. I think that it really gave people space to understand how these different aspects of their life were really affecting them, then come back again with more intention in terms of what they wanted their lives to look like.

Have you seen any cultural changes? And when I'm saying that we talked about the general market. How has the pandemic. How has the past couple years affected the black community, the Hispanic community? Is it having a different effect on them than it is the general market or the white community?

That's a great question. We have not delved into that very much, partly because the questions we've been getting are these kind of overarching ones we've been talking about. I will say in our data, we know that when we asked people about how they felt the pandemic had affected them, demographics, including race and ethnicity, age, income, played really big roles in people's negative or positive kind of feelings of the effects of the pandemic.

I'd really like to hear that.

Yeah, honestly, it's been a little while since I went and looked at that data, so I'd have to go back and check up on it.

High points of it.

High points. So basic. I mean, at a high level, the better off you were financially, the more positive your pandemic outcomes. So that is a baseline. And of course, money trickles down to everything else. So if you are part of a population that tends to be lower income, then you're going to be. It's more likely you'll be in the negative bucket. Right. Because more people of color tend to work in frontline positions. Actually, it fell out on either end of the COVID concern, which makes sense intuitively, if you're having to go to work every day, either you're very anxious about going to work, or you just have to not care about it at all and say, nope, Covid doesn't bother me. I can't let this affect my job. We saw that. That was an interesting polari. In general, people of color, more negative effects in terms of my mental Health has suffered, my weight has suffered, I have had my job. Either I lost it or my hours are shortened or I'm having to work in much more stressful conditions. That also tended to be true the younger that people were and of course also lower income. There are also a lot of big differences between men and women, even men and women in the same kind of strata. When we sliced and diced people to compare apples to apples. Among men and women who are working full time remotely from home and are parents, dads are much more likely to say my dad got better, I'm exercising more. Moms are more likely to say my mental health is terrible, I've gained weight and I don't have time to do anything for myself. So it was just really a mixed bag in terms of all of these effects. Even among people who seem essentially the.

Same, is America healthier today in 22 than they were in March of 20?

I think physically, perhaps mentally, I think that people are probably still trying to climb out of that hole. But again, it looks very different once you zero in on particular age groups. Once you divide men and women as a whole in terms of big numbers, I would say yes. And the nuance there is that people have grown more engaged with health than they were previously. But the number of people we see that are not engaged in healthy eating, fitness or mindfulness has not budged. Those people still not engaged, it's very consistent. The same people pre pandemic as now, but for everyone else it's about 80% of the gen pop is engaged, at least aspirationally in some aspect of health. Those people have gotten healthier. They have moved from aspiration to action in some measure.

You're saying about 20% of the population just couldn't care less about their health?

Pretty much.

I mean, I'm not surprised by that. I'm actually surprised the number's that low, to be honest with you.

Yeah, yeah, well, and that's interesting. I mean, when you take a look at it so, and I'm just talking out loud and maybe Sarah will be like, no, you're outside of your mind. But nice try, kid. From what she's saying, you've got essentially the healthy people have just doubled down and they are just getting deeper into their health and their habits and understanding of who they are and they've expanded outside of just, just maybe one aspect of it. So they might fitness, but now they're doing nutrition and their mental health like.

So, yeah, I'm assuming that the people who were already on a path got better on the path during COVID So.

What'S going on in my mind now is those are your early adapters. Right. Those in most circles are your major influencers, if you will, for lack of better term. Right. So has it been something that since this group has gone so deep into this, that for lack of a better term, the group of individuals that are kind of on the bubble, they've kind of pulled them along a little bit. And then the ones that were like, I don't care, I still don't care, like, are they having a stronger impact on their circle than they have in the past? I don't know, it's just interesting.

Yeah, I'm not sure either. I will be honest and say that we don't go out and talk to those unengaged folks very often. I can tell you kind of who they look like demographically.

Hard to get to them because they're all on a couch.

Right. And a lot of them actually there's a certain chunk that, you know, try every once in a while. You know, they every, every few months they'll get out and go for a walk. But most of them actually say, no, I'm fine.

So what's, what's the biggest, what's the biggest lessons that you've learned in the past couple months that CPG companies need to know or are maybe missing out on?

That's a great question. I think that the holistic health trend is related to things that were already happening. And so a lot of the trends that I'm talking about, the pandemic brought them about or exacerbated them, but their legs are really from things that were already going on. For instance, mindfulness or the deepening engagement in multiple areas of health. What happens is that those people go back to the trends that were already there. What we're seeing is a greater share of people's groceries are organic, or they're looking more often for functional claims, or in the case of mindfulness, engaged consumers, they're really interested in plant based eating, in moving away from meat and dairy, in sustainability, in these trends that were already there. But they have an additional motive now, so their reason for buying is even stronger.

So the pandemic was a force multiplier on, yes, good habits.

Yes, exactly. Now we're running up now against all of these supply chain and inflation issues, which means that makes the future even harder to predict. So it's hard for me to know if these consumers, who again tend to be younger, are they going to be able to stick with their habits now? That it's going to cost them more than it used to. And at the same time as social life is picking back up again.

Yeah. And inflation is going to have an impact on a lot of this stuff too.

And that was one of my questions I just wrote down is do you believe because of this force multiplier that these aspects have become an even stronger part of their identity, not just their habits?

I think so. And I think part of that is because people developed these new habits and attitudes and approaches a little bit in isolation. So it feels like something that came out of themselves, really internally motivated rather than externally something that was placed on them.

And for the CPG brands that are in these spaces, I think that's important for them to understand because now they have to realize that when they're talking to these consumers that it's not just a trend or like a habit or a change they want to make. This is who they are. So when you're talking about mindfulness, talking about fitness, this is not just here's the next pre workout. No, no. This is part of who they define themselves as. So you need to make sure that your communication is done properly or you risk, you risk alienating them now. So your approach has to change if you're going to be in these spaces.

Now, your company, how does your company interact in the CPG industry?

Well, so I run the syndicated branch of our company, but in fact most of our business is custom market research. So we have quite a few CPG clients. We serve kind of a broad range of industries, but a lot of CPG in there. So a lot of what we do is kind of your standard market research fair segmentations, concept tests, research on consumer perceptions and behaviors and attitudes and usage, that kind of thing. In terms of the syndicated Mytracker is it's a subscription based service. Our clients are people who are in the health and wellness space and are interested in keeping up with these broad based consumer trends. Because we collect data continuously, one of the benefits of subscribing is we have a data portal that's updated every month so you get to see the latest data within two weeks of the month closing. So you get to see how things are changing. Sometimes that's good, sometimes that's bad, especially with all the volatility I've been talking about. But it makes knowing what's going on really easy and very up to date.

We're a big fan of actionable data. I mean, some people just get buried in data for the sake of data. But actionable data in today's world is a huge value. You because we now have the ability through people like Sarah and through her company and through IRI and all the different organizations that we deal with in this industry, we have the ability to collect a lot of data. And if you look at that data and here's what I'm going to say about the data, the key with the data is asking the right question.

Yes.

You need to really formulate the question. What is it that I'm trying to learn from this data? Yes. And once you can form the right question, you can pull an enormous amount of value out of all these datas. How would anybody, any of our CPG listeners, how would they get in touch with you or get in touch with your firm?

Well, they can email me, it's smarianurphyresearch.com you can also visit the website and get in touch through the website. It's murphyresearch.com and of course I'm on LinkedIn too. Sarah Marion.

And folks, don't panic if you're driving since most people are, we'll have all these links in the show notes. Just go to CPG Insiders and the episode with Dr. Marion and you'll find links to LinkedIn and the website and the email. All right there. You don't have to pull off the road and try to drive it. Try to write down things.

Please don't do that.

Any last thoughts, any last questions? Justin?

No, no, I just, I think when we're talking about, we talked about a lot today and it's been a fantastic conversation and it seems like takeaways for our consumers is and for our listeners is that consumers are taking a holistic approach to their health. So there's not just one aspect anymore. They're really understanding every aspect, how they correlate, how they work together. If you're in the health segment, these consumers have double downed. So if they were in those habits already, they are going even deeper into those things. And so all the patterns that have started previously have just been expounded. So pay attention.

And what I found really interesting is for years Sarah brought up a really good point. For years the nutrition world has belonged to the 55 plus consumer.

Yes, that's a great point.

So all the data and especially non letter vitamins really belong to that 55 plus consumer. And what Sarah's saying is that there's now room to start to sell those products to people under that 55 age.

Oh for sure. But you can't use the same strategies.

Right, Right, right.

I Completely agree. Because it's going to be very hard to sell a 20 something something that they think is for grandma and grandpa.

Well, exactly. And then the things that you know, grandma and grandpa are looking for again tend to be things like lower fat, you know, lower sugar. And that does not necessarily tell a younger person that this is a healthy product because those aren't the quality cues that they're, that they're interested in.

Yep, they're, they are. I mean being someone within the segment, it's performance. That's what I want. What is it going to do for, for me not away. So it's about how can it enhance my life, my getting. The outcome that I'm looking for is key.

And that's a really good point. When you look at your age and my age, Justin and I are both really into nutrition and fitness and peptides and regenerative medicine, things like that. But you're very right, you're very performance focused at your age. And I have some performance focus, but I'm longevity focused.

Right, right.

So it is a different focus. Although we overlap a lot and we use a lot of the same things. The intent is a little different.

It is.

Performance is secondary for me where it's primary for you.

Absolutely. And again, how we communicate, when we're in our circles, how we communicate about them is different. It's very different. And you understand that. And just like Sarah was talking about too earlier, when we talk about communication that is shifting now that we need to understand that these consumers are within that digital space. But again, it's an education based communication now. Need to understand that you need to have a conversation with them. You can't just tell them something that is key, that's important. And if you're going to have a conversation, as many of our listeners first talk about and Sarah mentioned it, you have to build a rapport. And in order to build a rapport, a lot of the things we talked about today is this is the identity of these consumers. Understand that and communicate them in that frame of reference or you will alienate them and they will go away.

Now I want to throw something else in there. Now I live in that longevity world and know a lot of people in it and go to seminars and speak at places. I want to tell our CPG companies if you're entering into that longevity space, and I'm giving you this more anecdotally than research wise, but I'm very confident what I'm, what I'm saying the 55, 65, 75, 85 year old who is deeply steeped in longevity. You need to take them out of your 55 plus bucket when you're talking to them because mindset isn't there.

Right, right.

You need to start talking to them as if they were probably in the 45, 54 bracket. Because as you're talking about, you know, grandpa's concerned with lowering his cholesterol and getting his diabetes under control. Somebody in longevity is looking, has a whole different window. And you have to keep in mind when, when you have a longevity mindset and your goal is, okay, I'm going to live to be 100, 120, all of a sudden 65 isn't old. 65 is middle aged.

Right, yeah.

So your mindset is like someone who's middle age which is normally 40.

Right, right.

So you need to be careful. I'm just advising the listeners, you need to be careful with how you talk to that group. Don't talk to them like an old person.

Right. Well, and I know that we're, you know, this is fascinating. And just on that topic, Sarah, was there any data when you're looking at, from an age group standpoint and since you were tracking fitness trackers, things like that, did you see any variances in the older segment data where it's like, huh, there are some consumers that were acting, for lack of a better term, like grandma and grandpa. But then there's others that were acting completely different.

Actually, yes, as you were talking, we actually just did a topical report on, we called it health and wellness at Midlife. So looking at that 35 to 54 year old space, which is a pivotal time in terms of health and wellness generally for most consumers. Exactly what you were saying. We can see that in the data at about age 45, consumers, health modality, I guess I would say shifts away from fitness towards nutrition. But there is this steady kind of. Now it's a minority of people who remain engaged, they go into the gym, they're continuing to keep up with their fitness habits. But there's something that happens in this age group where a lot of people give up activities that they used to do. And I think that is probably the shift that you mean. So the, the forward thinking group that is interested in longevity, they're in it for the long haul. Where they are is only like a third of the way through their lives, not halfway through. That's this key group that continues to be engaged at a higher level while everyone else kind of moves toward. I go for a walk a few times a week, I take my vitamins For a lot of older folks, like vitamins are the be all, end all of health. And so, yeah, there are like, it's clear that among boomers in particular, there's now a really broad spectrum of health engagement with big differences at either end.

Yeah. And I'll give you an example. One of the things really jumps out at me is there's now a 14 year old, 14 year gap in age between the top 1% of income earners in America and the bottom 10%. So the wealthiest people in America are on average living 14 years longer than the people at the bottom.

That's incredible.

And some of that is due to better nutrition, some of that is due to access to better health care. But a lot of that is actually from better decision making because there's pretty much a direct correlation between wealth and education. And there's a pretty strong, other than inherited wealth, there's a real strong correlation between good decision making and becoming wealthy.

Yeah, that makes sense.

And that's why that 14 year gap is expected to be there. And that gap is going to grow. That gap is expanding.

We have more opportunities to make good decisions too. When you have a better job, a better education, a better support system, a little bit of a financial cushion.

Absolutely. More freedom.

We're now down to. Ray Kurzweil speaks about something in longevity which is called breakout velocity. And breakout velocity is the original term. Breakout velocity is when a spacecraft could get up enough velocity and enough speed to break out of the atmosphere. So he uses it metaphorically. And what is referenced to breakout velocity is when medical science can add one year of your life for every year you live. Now, Moore's Law has been kicking in on this only a very short time back, only three, four years back, we were adding one year of life to every seven years that you lived. Science was adding one year for every seven that you live as of right now. Today, the number is now one year of life for every four years you live. So we're seeing this acceleration toward how science, medicine, fitness, nutrition, lifestyle, all of the regenerative medicine, how all of these things are having an effect. And we're going to continue to continue to see the demographic, a large demographic, become older and older and older, but not behave like they're older and older and older.

Right. Yeah. So I mean, you know, again, for our, for our listeners and the brands and Sarah, it sounds like this is, what you're saying is change the way you approach the adults. 55 plus, you need to go a lot deeper.

Well, figure out who you're talking to.

Exactly.

You're selling Flintstone Gummy bears to adults. And yeah, that's, there's your demo. But if you're selling something based on true longevity, then yes, you're talking to an older consumer. But don't talk to them like they're an old consumer.

Right.

Because I will slap you down.

And I actually wonder if that shouldn't start earlier too. One of the things we found in this focus on midlife consumers, it's not rocket science. Millennials are now, they make up half of that 35 to 50 year old age group, population size wise, even though it's only the first five years. Millennials end at 40, age 40 or 41. Right now they're bringing all of those millennial approaches to eating and health with them into middle age. If you looked at middle aged consumers and they're dominated by boomers, that's going to look totally different than what a middle aged consumer wants now. And so you can't use the same strategies and you won't be able to moving forward because all of those approaches to nutrition that we've been associating with younger consumers are now marching forward with time. They're bringing new needs to them, but the approach is going to come from what they were doing in their 30s.

Yeah. And even as we look at the baby boomers, so we know that baby boomers, there's 10,000 baby boomers turning 65 every day. We know that these new seniors, these newly minted seniors, and if 65 magically makes you a senior because Medicare said so, they're not going to behave like their parents.

No.

There'S nothing like them. Very little other than a small part of the demographic. But the majority of those people do not behave as their parents. But a lot of marketers are still lumping them into that generation, into that greater generation mindset where they're thinking, well, somebody's 65, they're set in their ways. They're not going to change brands, they're going to buy whatever. And that's not the case. They are changing brands, they are looking for better stuff. They are trying to find new solutions. They're not like their parents.

Right? Right. And as we talk about, like the foundations of how our minds work, right. The foundation of our meta principles, our heuristics are our, the foundational goals that our mind wants to achieve. Right. We want achieve autonomy, we want to achieve security. All these things are the same, but how the consumers define them is completely different. Completely different. And that's very important to understand as a marketer to say, hey, yep. How this consumer is approaching the need of security or how they define autonomy. If this fits, you need to fully understand that.

I just don't understand you young people.

Well, I mean, oh, I know that better than anybody. But seriously, that's the point. So like you said, get a deeper understanding of your consumer. Understand their indications, their needs, their motivations. Because if you fall back to old habits of our industry, you're going to fail.

So Sarah, thanks for being with us folks. If you want to learn more about Sarah and Murphy Research, just go to our website cpginsiders.com, look for the episode with Dr. Sarah Marion. You will find all the links there and go to their website, learn about what they have. Data is important. Your competitors are using data.

Yes.

If you are not using data and using it smartly, your company is falling behind. You are letting yourself stay stuck in the mud while other people are making much more informed decisions. Everybody, we hope you love this episode of CPG Insiders. If you do, please go to wherever you get your podcast, leave us a five star review. And of course, always be you can always get in touch with Justin or myself at CPG insiders. Jekyllheid labs.com you can get a hold of us at either one of those places and feel free to reach out to us if you have questions, if you have comments, or if there's a topic that you would like us to actually do a show on. Reach out to us. And we always we encourage people to Sometimes some of the shows are based on what people, what questions you ask. If you're looking to greatly increase sales on your CPG product, don't hesitate to contact us at Jekyll and Hyde Advertising and Marketing. By the way, the only advertising agency with a guaranteed result. Just go to jekyllhideagency.com or feel free to give us a call at 800 542.

That.