Making mindfulness matter: The role of context in wellbeing innovation
Back in the early years of my career I used to get pretty stressed out about work. Life in a comms agency is always a juggling act, and as much as I loved it, learning to juggle successfully could often feel overwhelming.
A friend suggested I try something one of her colleagues was launching – a fledgling mediation app called Headspace. She gave me a code to be part of the initial beta trial, and I gave it a whirl. Remember, this was in 2012, when the idea of delivering something of this nature (in this case, mindfulness sessions at the touch of a button) via an app, was still in its infancy.
What made it work was putting the power of meditation directly into my hand, for whenever I needed it. Those moments of work stress and panic could be relieved by jumping into the app for a moment of mindfulness. And I discovered that my morning commute, on a busy, noisy train, was exactly the right environment for me to put on my headphones, close my eyes, and commit to my practice (so much so that today I still struggle to meditate when it’s quiet, and when I’m not in motion!)
In a comforting twist of fate, years later, I was lucky enough to work with Headspace, leading the agency team tasked with reintroducing the brand to the UK market, after several years of the US market being the main priority.
This was around 2018 – a couple of years before the pandemic, when the ideas of self-improvement and investment ‘in the self’ might have been readily accepted by US consumers, but that culturally didn’t quite fit with the UK mentality. Our insight work identifying that the task wasn’t to convince people to choose Headspace, but to first convince them that their own mental health and wellbeing was worth investing in in the first place. This helped us unlock a communications strategy focused on breaking through the tendency for people in the UK to be self-deprecating, sceptical, and averse to self-promotion.
In that particular case, the Woosah was convincing people that they should invest in their own selves, before then introducing them to the positive impacts that Headspace and mindfulness could bring to their lives. However, context was still king: making mindfulness available – in the palm of your hand and therefore within every aspect of daily life – was what made it such a success.
Fast-forward to today and things look a bit different. While we’re perhaps not as self-confident as our US-counterparts, I do believe that people in the UK are generally more open to self-improvement, whether in their mental or physical health, educational and intellectual development, in spiritual and philosophical understanding, or through countless other areas. The pandemic was perhaps a catalyst for that too; the trauma and turmoil of that period worked to encourage people to seek out support, breaking down some of the stigma that was still attached to practices like meditation. It also brought a ubiquity to content – paid or free – that enabled people to meditate or to bring mindfulness to various moments of their lives.
What I find so interesting here is the idea of context, and of cutting through yet again when it comes to positioning a brand that offers health and wellbeing support. If I think back to my original trigger for seeking help – work-related stress – that was at a time when the idea of a company admitting that employees might inadvertently (or otherwise) be suffering from stress was an alien concept. After all, where there’s blame… But today, just like the shift in consumer psyche, employers are openly acknowledging that work can, at times, be stressful, and that far from being something that should be buried or ignored, can become that moment of context within which something better can take place.
That’s why I’m fascinated with a brand called Walking on Earth (or WONE as it likes to call itself). It brings together modern technology and digital delivery with established, ancient practices, to help employees address workplace stress. The fact that it has chosen the workplace environment is crucial – to me this elevates it’s offer and aligns the business objective (making your people healthier, happier and potentially, more valuable and productive) with an individual employee’s own wellbeing.
The echo of that aforementioned Headspace strategy is there too – I wonder if the task here isn’t simply to promote the WONE brand and what it offers, but to help business leaders be open and honest about the fact that yes, with the greatest will in the world, work and workplaces can be stressful environments, and that making that admission can be a good and powerful thing, if it’s matched up with the right support solution.
Whether that’s WONE’s approach or not, what is clear is that getting the context right is what can transform a brilliant idea or product, into a commercial successful one.