THE HEALTH OF HUMANKIND: THE NUE CO
Get to know the iconic supplement brand that is changing the way we think about health | Nov 16 2021
The Nue Co was born in 2017 with a mission to redefine the relationship we have with our health. Prioritising a holistic view of wellness, founder Jules Miller wanted to completely revolutionise the way we think about and consume supplements – challenging the idea of a one-off, quick-fix to cure all and connecting with customers on an emotional level. It’s a methodology that has clearly taken hold, with 70% of customers now repeat purchasers.
Here Jules tells us about early key learnings, the concept of interhealth and the brand’s expansion into fragrance.
Q.
Did you always believe in a holistic view of wellness or has that developed over time?
A.
The concept of developing products around ten different need states has been part of our concept since day one. We know that our gut health can impact our mood, that sleep can impact our skin and that stress can impact our cognitive health. Developing products that don’t take into account total, holistic health seemed counterproductive.
Q.
What was the initial idea when you launched the brand and how did it develop within the first year? What were some of your early learnings?
A.
The initial belief was that supplements could play a more functional and emotional role in people’s lives. The functional element was easy—we needed to develop formulas that worked—whereas the emotional piece was slightly harder. We really wanted our customers to care about the ingredients they were consuming. We wanted them to choose us due to our values, not just our products.
I’d say our biggest win, and biggest learning, is to question category norms and trends. At the beginning, some of my mentors advised against our approach to format (we develop ingestible, topical and fragrance supplements). Until us, most people wouldn’t buy their fragrance from the same brand who develops their probiotics. However, we felt passionately that a ‘supplement’ was merely a product that delivered a health benefit in an efficient way; it didn’t necessarily have to come in the form of a pill.
Today, our fragrance supplements are a great customer acquisition tool. It’s an innovative concept that delivers an almost instant benefit. Once we’ve acquired that customer, we are in a position to sell the rest of our ingestible range which are primarily sold via our subscription service.
Q.
Can you explain what interhealth means to you and have you seen consumer understanding of the concept change?
A.
We were super targeted with our audience when we launched. We focused on acquiring ‘the innovators/early adopters’, they usually represent 6% of your market, these were the consumers who followed the emerging trends, which in our case were clean ingredients and sustainability, but were also thirsty for innovation. Our objective was to develop products that were good for their own health but also benefited the health of the planet and the health of the farmers responsible for growing our ingredients. That’s what interhealth means to us.
I would say that in the last two years the concept is now more widely understood by ‘the early majority’. As an example, Sephora have recently introduced their clean/planet positive accreditation which has strict expectations from brands claiming to be sustainable and clean within a mass-market environment.
