You Can’t Sell a Wellness Brand if You Aren’t a Wellness Brand

By Margot Grover, Chief Strategy Officer at Saatchi & Saatchi Wellness

At Saatchi & Saatchi Wellness, wellness isn’t just another point in our mission statement; it’s the heartbeat of our organization. We are not just an agency that specializes in wellness. We are a wellness brand.

The decision to become a wellness brand was not just a strategic move. It was a promise, an unwavering commitment to the very people we serve—our employees, our clients, and their audiences. Our ambition was to ensure that every stakeholder—including our clients and our workforce—views us as an undeniable leader in wellness.

Our Rebranding: Why Now?

When the pandemic upended the world, every domain of our lives shifted. The dramatic and immediate impact on our people, our clients’ businesses, and our culture itself prompted us to rethink how we go to market as an advertising agency and connect with our people and clients. In this new global context, we had to redefine what wellness really meant for us, and it was clear that our role had to transcend business boundaries. It had to be about reshaping the essence of wellness at a time when physical, mental, and emotional well-being became humanity’s cornerstone. 

But defining our vision was not without its challenges. The wellness realm today feels crowded, with brands often attaching the “wellness” label without much depth. To be a successful wellness brand, you must be aware of how the different dimensions of wellness play into your consumers’ lives. I also believe that to be truly transformative in the wellness space, you must embed its principles across all facets of your business, governing everything from how you treat your employees, to how you work, and how you measure success.

Building a Strong Wellness Brand

From my perspective, brands that genuinely embody wellness do more than just sell; they touch lives. They’re in sync with the evolving needs of their audience, creating offerings that resonate deeply. I believe there are three key ingredients to building a successful wellness brand:

1. Be aspirational and clear about your values. Wellness is a process through which people make choices toward a more meaningful existence on many levels. Brands that understand this and help their consumers achieve more meaning in their lives through unique brand experiences have the power to change behavior in ways that go beyond rational explanation. 

2. Create powerful experiences to help your audience attain more wellness in their lives. Transactions are fleeting. When a brand helps its customers attain something that matters in their lives, they are making a connection that lasts through the ups and downs of business and market cycles. We aim to build powerful experiences that strengthen our collective journey toward better well-being.

3. Root your offering in authentic products and services. Wellness, at its core, is about honesty and transparency. We can only be well if we are honest and transparent about what we do in our lives. The same holds true for brands when it comes to their ingredients, processes, and beliefs. We believe in the power of authenticity, accuracy, and integrity throughout our entire company. 

Our Evolution to True Wellness

We believe that our greatest work comes from the minds, hearts, and souls of the people we hire. At the end of the day, in a business as subjective as advertising, nothing is ever certain. There is no “right” finite answer. We are in the business of belief. And belief starts with people. When we hire people we believe in and create a culture where they believe in themselves, we create work that we believe in—work that the world and our clients believe in. And then there is nothing we cannot achieve.

So, we decided the best way to live out our values was to focus on creating a wellness culture with our people first and to use that cultural shift to instigate a more significant impact in the world. We call it the “Wellness Effect.” It is a simple idea. We believe that when our people do well in their lives, our work does well because it becomes more creative. This helps our clients’ businesses do well and ultimately helps the audiences we are speaking to do well, which leads to a more well world.

We applied this thinking to our own rebrand, bringing together our top creative talent to crack the code. The result of this process? A creative platform that led our entire rebrand centered around two words: “Do well.” This isn’t just a catchphrase for us; it’s a belief—an affirmation that wellness is the cornerstone of creativity and progress. When we empower each other to “do well,” we can create real change.

We used this idea to redefine everything that we do as an agency and how we show up in the world: from how we hire, to how we develop strategies and creative, to how we measure our success.

Creating a Culture of Wellness

Becoming a wellness brand was a journey of introspection, growth, and transformation for Saatchi & Saatchi Wellness. It involved more than just redefining our corporate identity; it was about living up to our reimagined promise to our clients, our team, and the world. We’ve experienced firsthand the immense value of authentically embedding wellness into every facet of a business. And, this year, the industry has started taking notice—Saatchi & Saatchi Wellness was listed by Ad Age as one of the Best Places to Work in 2024.

Our advice to others? Embrace the multifaceted nature of wellness. Be genuine, be persistent, and establish wellness values to define your corporate culture.