A photograph of Tomas de Souza.

Ablemind is an award-winning medtech startup, offering a unique method to diagnose and treat mental illness in healthcare. Ablemind uses artificial intelligence to interpret and analyze patients’ descriptions of their health, delivering unique insights into what treatment works for each individual. Ablemind’s CEO Tomas de Souza has spent his career working with digital transformation and innovation in varying industries, supporting corporations and organizations in their work to harness the power from digital technology. In this reflection, he combines his experience from business development with a human perspective on how technology and consumption affect consumer wellbeing.

What we consume and how we consume affects our health: From the physical effects of the food we eat, to the stress put on our personal finances when we consume beyond our means. The debate on sustainable consumption in regard to wellbeing seems to follow the same logic as for the climate: less is better.

However, the essence of wellbeing is not about reduction. On the contrary, wellbeing is about living a fulfilling life. Today, the stress put on consumers to make informed decisions and stay away from non-sustainable consumption is putting the focus on what we cannot have. Much like social media has created utopian expectations of what success in life could look like, consumers are left with a feeling of missing out on the good in life.

Consumption for Good

Wellbeing is so much more than the absence of illness. It is largely, and somewhat vaguely, defined as having positive feelings about one’s life. These feelings correlate strongly with what expectations we set for ourselves. So instead of doing less, we should calibrate our expectations and redefine what growth and success looks like. When successful, mental health treatment activates the individual to better understand what situations and activities support their wellbeing. This is a task that can be undertaken by others than healthcare professionals. Purpose driven brands and marketers can increase our understanding about ourselves and what promotes our wellbeing, thus directing our consumption to the things that truly make us feel well.

While the slow-food and slow-fashion-movements have fans all over the world, who strive to find balance in the present and practice absence, there are still several aspects of wellbeing that are strongly connected to consumption. Like fulfilment and personal growth. In this new paradigm, brands who allow us to feel good about ourselves long term will gain ground.

In the mental health space, services like Calm and Headspace support millions of users to embrace positive daily habits like mindfulness, meditation, and improved sleep. When will we start seeing behavioural nudges like these integrated into retail experiences?

Access Over Ownership

If the environment and our health stand in the way of consumption, we will start consuming differently. The changes in consumer behaviour that we have seen in recent years were mainly driven by external factors, but intrinsic motivation for change will lead the way in the long term.

One of the most defining changes in business models is the transition from purchasing to subscribing. This trend, offering access over ownership, democratizes consumption of high capital goods like passenger cars, taking consumers out of debt and into flexible leasing periods and carpools where many consumers share the same asset. Access over ownership is a consumer trend that is supporting everything from the climate to financial wellbeing and increased quality of life and, on top of that, financial growth.

Financially unstable households are highly overrepresented in groups with mental health issues. Business models that ease the pressure on our wallets, not including buy now pay later-schemes, may hence also play a role in empowering consumer wellbeing.

Healthwashing or Brands as Role Models

During the pandemic, social isolation, financial distress, and the lack of future prospects suffered by many, helped to highlight what is truly meaningful in an ordinary, everyday life. This insight seems to be growing among people and industries alike. A growing number of organizations are investing in initiatives to improve their employees’ mental health, such as digital services, shorter working weeks, and flexible working hours.

Brands and retailers are also testing the waters of empathizing with consumers. However, these initiatives are still focused on building awareness and reducing stigma surrounding mental health issues, thus there is a high risk of creating an era of healthwashing, with brands assuring us that they care about our feelings while harvesting our data.

Instead, the opportunity lies in behavioural change. Behavioural change is one of the trickier aspects of mental healthcare. We all know that it is good for our health to sleep well, eat well and to exercise. What really gets us going is what will make a difference. The renowned sports brand, Nike, have steadily improved their offering to consumers by adding digital services that support healthy activities. With these, they formed a believable ecosystem, a world where consumers of all sizes can invest in their personal health by investing their time, and eventually money, in Nike’s wide range of products and offerings. Nike doesn’t tell us that exercise is good for us. We already know that. Instead, they tell us to just do it and lead the way for us to do so.

Consuming Healthcare

Retailers all over the world have recognized that contemporary consumers are increasingly well informed and that they can no longer rely on pushing simplistic, suggestive marketing onto cattle-like individuals. Healthcare, however, still lies far behind the curve. At Ablemind, we have concluded, based on a large number of interviews with patients and their families, that being informed is not the ticket to receiving treatment in mental healthcare. In fact, patients describe interactions with healthcare professionals where they are considered too capable if they share how they have researched their own symptoms.

Faced with a constant lack of resources, healthcare is forced to prioritize those who are in the worst conditions, leaving large numbers of individuals in need of treatment. This too has sparked a growing interest among employers to find other ways to support employees, but consumers are left with an unregulated and highly speculative market of mental health apps.

The increased awareness of mental health needs among consumers combined with the tight restrictions on the availability of healthcare, have led to an imbalance in supply and demand. Increased awareness also leads to growing demand for preventive solutions. All in all, there is a market for healthy, sustainable consumption, where retailers and brands will need to choose sides. Those who manage to find a positive correlation between consumption and wellbeing will keep growing. Demand is neither absent nor slowing down.

Subscribing to Happiness

Happiness and wellbeing are not fixed states. They vary over time and, as consumers, we continue to look for ways to consume time and money to get more out of life. The green movement will be joined by the health movement, reaching beyond awareness and leading consumers towards a happier and healthier lifestyle. Does your offering spark joy? Then make it available to the masses and sign me up.