If wellness is the fascia binding beauty, health and wellness into a single project, as described in a new report by AlixPartners and CEW, there appear to be quite a few tears in the connective tissue between executives and consumers.

The once-disparate aspects of beauty, health and wellness, a $230 billion market in the United States, according to Euromonitor, are converging faster than executives can keep pace with, and long-held assumptions about who consumers are, what they’re willing to try and what motivates their spending are proving hard to shake. The disconnect is causing companies to miss opportunities by overlooking pockets of demand, competitive threats and changing expectations around everything from product efficacy to women’s health.

“Consumers are just so far ahead of defining beauty, health and wellness, having it as an integrated category and viewing it as one consideration set,” says Lindy Firstenberg, co-lead of beauty, health and wellness at AlixPartners. “Executives are playing the old playbook because that’s what they’ve been taught and what’s been done.”

She adds, “Right now, the way we talk about wellness is very strange because we talk about it as a category to itself. Over the next couple years, what we’re going to see is that wellness actually isn’t a category. It permeates into everything else.”

AlixPartners and CEW’s report, “The Extract: Beauty × Health × Wellness,” is based on a survey of 1,000 American consumers ages 18 and older, 49% men and 51% women, and 127 beauty, health and wellness executives. The consumer sample was distributed across age and income brackets and regions in the United States.

The report delineates wellness as encompassing wearables, fitness, recovery, mental health, sexual wellness, oral wellness, nutrition, sleep and stress, and it underscores how vital wellness is to consumers. Sixty-three percent rank health and wellness among their top three discretionary spending priorities, ahead of every other category surveyed, including beauty and personal care at 52%.

Beauty Independent talked to Firstenberg to identify six of the most striking disconnects between executives and consumers revealed by the survey.

1. Executives Think Consumers Spend More Time On Beauty, Health And Wellness Than They Do

Most Americans aren’t as obsessed with beauty, health and wellness as Oura’s millions-strong customer base might make one think. The survey finds two-thirds of consumers spend under 90 minutes a day on beauty, health and wellness, including 37% who devote less than an hour to it.

Wellness executives, many of whom may be body optimizers themselves, believe the consumer is much more committed. Eighty-seven percent estimate their consumers spend more than 90 minutes daily on beauty, health and wellness. Just 14% of beauty executives, 12% of health executives and 7% of wellness executives believe their core consumers spend less than an hour a day on beauty, health and wellness.

The survey, however, doesn’t suggest there are no consumers cold plunging, sleep tracking, peptide injecting and whatever the latest cutting-edge wellness practice is. It finds roughly one in five consumers are pushing the envelope as “first-to-know” or “explorer” types, investing heavily in beauty, health and wellness. Executives overestimate the share of the population this wellness maxxing cohort represents.

“Beauty, health and wellness is actually built on the minority, not the majority,” says Firstenberg. “This sector is really buoyed by a high-spending, high-committed minority of the population.”

2. Men Are No Longer On The Sidelines Of Beauty And Wellness Spending

Vanity is hardly a feminine quality these days. Men are becoming the main event rather than peripheral players in the business of beauty, health and wellness. Gen Z and millennial men spend more time and money on beauty, health and wellness than any other demographic group. They’re 2.7 times as likely as everyone else to spend $500 or more a month on it and more likely to dedicate over 1.5 hours a day to it, subscribe to products and services and be open to new tools and modalities.

Men aren’t spending just to pump iron. After vitamins and supplements, budgeted for by 46% of men, skincare (35%) and haircare (34%) are the categories the largest shares of men budget for, ahead of fitness and movement (22%), according to the survey. Sixty-seven percent of gen Z and millennial men subscribe to beauty, health and wellness products or services, compared to 38% of everyone else.

The household spending dynamics are shifting as men take greater ownership of beauty, health and wellness purchases that women have traditionally made for them. Firstenberg says, “Men are finally buying their own beauty, health and wellness products they were never marketed to before because women always bought them for them.”

But she cautions that the conclusion shouldn’t be that every man is an extreme looksmaxxer. Firstenberg says many are better described as “softmaxxers,” incorporating elements of beauty, health and wellness into their routines as practices trickle down from the most fervent to more typical adopters.

3. Executives Identify Their Competitive Set Too Narrowly

As wellness subsumes more of consumers’ routines and mindsets, beauty and wellness executives haven’t adjusted their frames of reference. The survey finds that 89% of executives point to direct category competitors as their greatest substitution risk, and only 5% see competitive threats outside their direct competitors. That means executives at skincare brands largely view other skincare brands as competition, but consumers’ patterns aren’t that neat.

“Almost 100% of consumers would trade off a night cream for a night cream just as likely as they would trade off a night cream for a red-light therapy or a night cream for a personal trainer,” says Firstenberg. “So, they’re just fundamentally thinking about trade-offs and competition differently.” She adds, “You actually see people choosing lasers or supplements over skincare or makeup.”

Firstenberg argues that executives’ narrow frame of reference hems in their creativity about where their businesses can go. The survey indicates consumers are more open to brands branching outside their core categories than executives imagine. More than 40% say they would trust a traditional beauty brand to extend into new formats like tools, patches and supplements.

A significant portion of executives, 43%, aren’t thinking that broadly, responding in the survey that their businesses should “stay in their lane” by focusing on hero products and those they’re most recognized for. Another 19% would employ partnerships to venture beyond their safe zone. The report chastises, “That’s old-school hedging. The consumer is way ahead of them.”

4. Consumers Expect Products To Work Faster Than Executives Realize

People want products to work well and fast. The report pinpoints GLP-1s as raising the bar for what consumers expect products to deliver. More than half of them say GLP-1s have reset their expectations. Only a quarter of executives say the same.

Discussing GLP-1s, Firstenberg says, “It’s becoming magical and almost not to be believed in the minds of consumers. They believe the technology is just so sophisticated that everything else should be magical and follow suit.”

Digging deeper into consumers’ standards for everyday beauty, health and wellness, the survey shows 27% anticipate immediate results from products in these categories, with another 43% anticipating results within weeks. Executives aren’t completely clueless about consumers’ growing impatience, with 56% acknowledging that impatience with product performance has increased.

The report calls the phenomenon “pharmification,” with consumers measuring the performance of consumer products against pharmaceuticals. It’s occurring as consumers seek out more invasive treatments and protocols that can provide stronger results than traditional consumer products.

With consumer expectations high, Firstenberg asserts that brands can no longer depend on marketing fluff or remain vague about when their products will deliver results. “If I were in charge of a beauty, health or wellness company that didn’t really have the clinicals to back it up or didn’t have the efficacy to back it up, I wouldn’t commit to a timeframe either,” she says. “I’d be terrified when you have all these new entrants and these new ingredients and pharmification of the whole sector.”

5. Executives Misjudge What Influences Purchase Behavior

By one estimate, influencer marketing is a $40.5 billion industry today, and it makes sense. Brands are trying to manufacture validation and word of mouth by seeding thousands and thousands of creators who have become essential digital salespeople.

But Firstenberg emphasizes that executives underestimate the power of the decidedly less scalable human-to-human recommendations they can’t so easily manufacture. “It’s the most potent and the most elusive referral source,” she says.

The gap between where executives surmise consumers discover beauty, health and wellness products and where consumers actually discover them is pronounced. Friends and family are a discovery source for 45% of consumers, markedly higher than the 30% estimated by executives.

Healthcare practitioners are a crucial discovery vehicle, too. They are a source for 38% of consumers versus 16% of executives. Community platforms like Reddit are cited by 31% of consumers and just 6% of executives.

Executives do get something right. In the survey, 32% of consumers say they turn to influencers and creators for discovery, roughly matching the 31% of executives who identify them as a discovery source.

The gap returns with purchasing behavior. Consumers list product reviews and ratings as the No. 1 purchase driver, ahead of discounts and clinical claims, while executives rank them No. 8.

Human connection isn’t just important in discovery. In the survey, women rank one-on-one human support as the leading component of personalization, ahead of recommended programs. Executives aren’t on the same page, ranking one-on-one support second to last among the personalization initiatives they pursue.

“Executives are playing the old playbook. They’re investing in personalized marketing when consumers are saying they want one-on-one human support,” says Firstenberg. “They’re doing things that are the old playbook because that’s what they were taught and that’s what’s been done.”

6. Executives Misread Women’s Health Priorities

Menopausal products have pushed into the mainstream, and executives have embraced the category, but the survey finds women are more focused on vaginal and sexual health needs. Sixty-seven percent of executives view perimenopause and menopause as a top commercial opportunity versus 24% of women who consider it a priority health topic.

Vaginal and intimate health is a priority for 37% of women, but only 13% of executives cite it as one. The divide is even greater around low libido and sexual health, cited by 34% of women and just 8% of executives.

Firstenberg says, “Even though menopause did us an amazing service and broke the glass ceiling in terms of finally being talked about … it’s actually not what’s most important to women.”

Epitomized by Allure’s decision in 2017 to stop using the term “anti-aging,” ageism has been a perennial conversation in beauty. The survey reveals progress, at least among the highest-spending consumers. Among respondents spending $500 or more a month on beauty, health and wellness, 94% deem age positivity a genuine cultural shift rather than a passing fad.

There has been a big move in beauty to decouple products from gender. Consumers don’t seem to be buying it. Seventy percent of consumers say they would purchase products tailored to their gender, including 73% of men and 68% of women. Yet just 13% of brands consistently develop gender-specific products, while 52% rarely or never do, according to the survey.

Firstenberg says, “At the end of the day, people do want gendered products, both women and men.”