Why more brands are folding science-backed studies into their marketing
More beauty, supplements and wellness brands have started conducting studies of their products to earn shoppers’ trust. Now, they’re folding those findings into their marketing to boost consumer confidence — and, with it, sales.
For instance, Elix, a hormonal health brand, has conducted two Institutional Review Board-approved studies since 2022: one about how its Cycle Balance product eased people’s premenstrual syndrome symptoms and another about how its Cycle Balance and Daily Harmony products helped people’s polycystic ovary syndrome symptoms. After publishing the results of its first study, the brand saw a 55% increase in new subscribers for Cycle Balance. By the end of six months, “we pretty much doubled the [entire] business,” Elix founder and CEO Lulu Ge told Modern Retail. The brand is promoting the launch of its latest study via a series of Instagram Live interviews and a social media campaign about PCOS.
Meanwhile, supplement brand Ritual has conducted studies on products, including its Essential for Women 18+ multivitamin, HyaCera skin supplement and Sleep BioSeries melatonin supplement. Sharing these results in marketing “has helped us become one of the most trusted brands for women’s health,” Ritual founder and CEO Katerina Schneider told Modern Retail. Ritual is on track to exceed $200 million in revenue this year, per WWD.
Companies have long conducted studies to verify that their products are safe and actually address the problems they purport to address. In the United States, clinical studies are mandatory for new pharmaceuticals and some medical devices. But notably, there isn’t an agreed-upon definition for how brands use the term “clinical study.” Studies can vary from those conducted in laboratories under controlled conditions to ones that involve feedback from participants.
What can make it even more confusing is how brands slice or dice some of these keywords. Last year, Fashionista published a deep dive into what various beauty product testing claims really mean. For example, according to the American Academy of Dermatology, if a brand says that a product was “clinically proven” or “clinically tested,” that does not necessarily mean that it underwent a clinical study; it only means that the product was given to consumers to try.
“There isn’t a standardized definition for how brands use the term ‘clinical-studied,’ and this can lead to misleading claims and questionable efficacy,” Schneider said.
Overall, more brands are doing research to adapt to post-pandemic consumer behaviors. During the Coronavirus pandemic, people started investing more in health and wellness and more closely scrutinizing products in these categories, Katie Thomas, head of the Kearney Consumer Institute, told Modern Retail. Consumers started doing activities that were considered “clinical” — like red light therapy or skin treatments — at home through products they bought on the internet. Brands started launching studies to point to the efficacy of their products and set their offerings apart.
“Before 2020, clinical trials were something for very scientific brands. [After] 2020, brands saw them as a tool to distinguish themselves from the competition,” Susanne Mitschke, CEO and co-founder of Citruslabs, told Modern Retail. Citruslabs has worked with brands, including Hum and Saie, on trials.
Doing these studies can be costly and time-consuming, but brands like Elix are making sure to build in funding for studies. “We have a multi-year budget for how we make sure that we’re investing in this area,” Ge said. The company, which launched in 2019, self-funded its two IRB-approved studies and plans to run more on other health conditions. It’s also in talks with healthcare institutions around working together on research.
“I think consumers these days are really prioritizing not just clean ingredients and how companies source their products, but how seriously companies take investment in research and development,” Ge said. “This is one additional way that we show that we’re really committed to adding to the repertoire of knowledge that exists.”
Ritual, which launched in 2016, lists where it gets its ingredients from and requires products to undergo third-party testing. It’s committed to conducting “gold-standard human clinical trials” on all Ritual SKUs by 2030, Schneider said. That means the trials are randomized and have a placebo control group. “This is not a requirement in the category, but it’s something we believe is important,” Schneider said.
Musely, a prescription skin care company, conducts patient efficacy studies over two- to three-month periods, founder Jack Jia told Modern Retail. Its products, which are designed to address conditions like rosacea and dark spots, have to “achieve at least 80% efficacy for 80% of patients” during testing, he explained. “Only then do we bring them to market,” he went on. “Our business is fundamentally built on patient testimonials, especially given that our patients tend to be quite skeptical,” Jia said. “Many have tried numerous treatments before coming to Musely, so their trust is vital.”
As brands conduct studies, they’re sharing results on social media and through marketing campaigns. In March 2023, the skincare brand Tatcha posted on Instagram about its Silk Serum, an alternative to retinol. It said that 100% of people in an expert-graded clinical study found the product reduced redness after four weeks. A month later, the skincare brand Peter Thomas Roth posted on Instagram that 97% of participants in a consumer perception study said their skin felt more nourished after using the brand’s Supercharged Potent-C moisturizer for four weeks.
Customers who see these messages might be more inclined to try those products or pick them over other ones, Kearney’s Thomas told Modern Retail. Still, she said, there are limitations. “If I’m a customer looking for brands that feel more scientific, these are the right sorts of products,” she said. “But it’s going to come down to purely if a person feels like it’s working for them.”