5Qs with Bayer on the trend of self-care

The trend of self-care in health and wellness has gained steady steam post-Covid-19. Alvin So, region head, at Bayer Consumer Health Division Asean shares where he thinks this trend will take us, and talks about how 2020 was a pivotal year for Bayer in their digital transformation journey. 

1. What are some of the key trends in the evolution of self-care in health and wellness that you have noticed pre- and post-Covid? 

Home to 650 million people and a growing aging population, Asean loses nine million people to lifestyle-related diseases every year. In the wake of Covid-19, we have seen countries and industries alike still struggling to battle the repercussions of the raging virus on social, economic and individual levels. In particular, healthcare systems, facilities and medical staff in Asean are being overstrained as the sheer number of patients needing care continue to surge, while resources continue to deplete.

Even before the pandemic, we’ve seen how access to self-care solutions strengthens the ability of individuals and communities to maintain health and prevent disease. With Covid-19 movement restrictions, e-commerce accessibility to self-care medicines has also become critically important for people to stay healthy while sheltering safe at home.

A recent survey by the EU-ASEAN Business Council (EU-ABC) has found that more than 80 per cent of respondents in Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam are looking for more access to medication and self-care solutions, and greater government support for at-home self-care solutions.

Specifically, the EU-ABC survey found that a majority wanted better availability of medicinal products, be it through online channels or physical stores. Respondents particularly welcomed the idea of undertaking medical consultations via online chats with healthcare providers and pharmacists, as well as purchasing over-the-counter (OTC) medicines online as opposed to a physical store or healthcare facility.

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Given the lower levels of comfort in visiting a healthcare provider now (compared to before the pandemic), it is not surprising that there was positive sentiment towards e-pharmacies, telemedicine and online purchasing of medicines for minor ailments. It also matches the general trend in Asean of more widespread online shopping.

 2. How have governments and/or the medical community responded to these trends? 

Moving ahead, governments and the medical community agree that there is a need for effective and sustainable solutions to address the impact of Covid-19, recover from the pandemic and rebuild better systems. While pharmaceuticals and medical companies focus their efforts on health innovations and vaccines, consumers can play a unique role in this collective effort towards sustainable health systems through self-care.

Allowing for more medicines to be available over-the-counter or through e-pharmacies, as well as driving more advocacy and investment into educational initiatives to improve health and medical literacy, will help promote increased self-care and health awareness in the region, and lead to savings in time and cost for healthcare systems that are already often overstretched.

More recent estimates in Asean countries like Vietnam calculate savings of nearly US$5 billion related to workforce productivity and reduced treatment costs if self-care were to become a more regular practice against common disease areas.

3. Are there specific communities that are being left out and why is this happening? 

According to Google’s e-Conomy SEA Report, 400 million of the 580 million population living in South-east Asia's six largest economies are online. That makes up 70 per cent of the SEA region’s population. 40 million of them came online in 2020 alone. This new digital acceleration is also here to stay, with 94 per cent of new digital service consumers intending to continue with these services post-pandemic. 

While the growing appetite for self-care may present a golden opportunity for Asean countries, it is also crucial to ensure that underserved communities are not left behind. 

For example, access to the right nutrients during the first 1,000 days of life – during pregnancy and throughout the first two years of a child’s life – is critical to a mother’s health as well as the healthy growth and development of the baby.

Unfortunately, vitamin and mineral deficiencies are a major public health problem in underserved communities, with women and children being particularly vulnerable. Almost 50 per cent of young women and adolescent girls in low- and middle-income countries have inadequate vitamin and mineral intake and at least half of children worldwide under age 5 suffer from this deficiency.

The consequences of vitamin and mineral deficiencies worsen gradually over time, resulting in significant health consequences across the lifespan and ultimately exacerbates the cycle of poverty.

Many vulnerable populations also lack knowledge about proper nutrition, the importance of a balanced diet and the value of supplementation when needed.

If self-care does not go hand in hand with health education and health literacy provided by medical professionals, there is the potential for incorrect self-diagnoses and missed opportunities to take the right measures at the right time, which can have serious consequences. Patients with low health literacy may also struggle with the transfer of care responsibilities, which may lead to non-compliance with medication, missed appointments and lack of follow-through on tests or referrals. This leads to unnecessary illness, unnecessary calls on primary healthcare services, and increased costs for both the medical system and individuals.

4. What is being done on this front? 

Self-care is a broad concept which encompasses any action you take for your physical, mental and emotional health, and it covers many facets of daily living. There are widely-recognised seven pillars to self-care, namely: knowledge & health literacy; mental wellbeing, self-awareness and agency; physical activity; healthy eating; risk avoidance; good hygiene; and, rational use of products & services.

This is also why promoting increased self-care practices is a societal effort. On one hand, governments can lead and encourage populations to take better care of themselves through educational programs, social pressure and various incentives. On the other hand, the private sector also has a role to play in this, often in partnership with various government agencies and civil society. We believe that the most effective programs work collaboratively across several different stakeholders, including community groups.

We are also playing our part by having active partnerships to make vitamins and minerals more affordable and accessible around the world, and also to advocate for the take-up of all these aspects of self-care.

As a leader and expert in supplemental nutrition, we know how important these nutrients are to help ensure health for all, particularly for vulnerable populations who need it most, like underserved women and children. Having a healthy baby is a concern for every parent and parent-to-be everywhere around the world, and we plan on creating programs that will help give babies the best start in life today and for generations to come.

As a part of our vision of “Health for All, Hunger for None,” we have launched “The Nutrient Gap Initiative” which expands access to vitamins and minerals for underserved communities to help combat malnutrition. The initiative’s goal is to reach 50 million people in underserved communities globally per year by 2030 through direct action and in partnership with critical non-governmental organizations (NGOs) with a focus on intervention, education, and advocacy. The Nutrient Gap Initiative is one of the many activations which contribute to the Bayer group’s overall sustainability commitment to enable access to everyday health for 100 million underserved people, by 2030.

Our work will begin with a focus on pregnant women and babies, given that they are among the most vulnerable and need even more support due to the impact of COVID-19. Preventing vitamin and mineral deficiencies early in pregnancy can help mitigate poor pregnancy outcomes, such as stunted growth and impaired neurological development, which lead to long-term health and economic consequences for individuals and societies. 

We aim to reach up to 4 million underserved pregnant women and their babies annually with a daily Multiple Micronutrient Supplementation (MMS) intervention in partnership with global non-governmental organization Vitamin Angels and its partners.

MMS is a formulation of essential vitamins and minerals that women need to help ensure their health, a healthy pregnancy, and a healthy baby.

Programs will be implemented to ensure high adherence and acceptance by the population, and to encourage the inclusion of this prenatal intervention into regular local antenatal health services to help impact the first 1,000 days of life (during pregnancy and through the first two years). Interventions will begin in countries including Indonesia and Vietnam, and will roll-out to other countries in subsequent years.

There’s still a lot more do be done.  We have initiatives also for Education (Health Literacy) and Advocacy that we as a Global and Asean leader in self care have a responsibility to implement, all to benefit the society we are all part of.  

5. Are there any other interesting projects Bayer has been engaged in? 

We are passionate about driving more public-private collaborations to enable consumer access to good quality self-care medicines for minor illnesses, and promoting a robust self-care framework which advances the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal #3 of Health and Wellness in Asean. We also see e-commerce and digital innovation, transformation and engagement as pivotal to expanding access to health and wellbeing solutions in the region. 

Acting on the clear demand from Asean consumers of wanting more access to self-care solutions over online channels, we have scaled up our digital business capabilities to expand consumer access to our self-care solutions. This meant giving digital consumers access to our brands and related health information online, through helpful content that both empowers them to take charge of their everyday health on our websites and social media channels, and gives them the convenient option of buying our products online.

2020 was a pivotal year for us in our digital transformation journey. We have increased our digital investments tremendously to keep up with the changing media and consumer landscape, as well as to engage the consumers that prefer to shop online. 

Last year, we ran numerous digital campaigns that were aimed at inspiring consumers to take charge of their everyday health. To name a few, we partnered with Dahmakan, an online food delivery company in Malaysia, to deliver Redoxon with the meals that consumers ordered. We launched our first all-digital Berocca Boost of Summer Campaign in the Philippines, selling the new variant exclusively online in partnership with our retailers. Our #CesBeforeCus (DrinkBeforeYouGo) Redoxon Immunity Tiktok campaign in Indonesia generated over 2 billion Views, Tiktok’s highest number of views in the ASEAN health category. Bepanthen engaged Thai moms to help in the treatment and prevention of nappy rash of their babies with the launch of the Perfect Teamwork campaign. 

As part of our digital ambition for Asean, we have made great strides in 2020 towards our vision of helping and engaging our consumers to take charge of their everyday health.

Our “Get Supercharged with Berocca at 2PM” (#Berocca2PM) initiative, which ran in Vietnam, has won multiple global, regional and local awards, including the Tiktok Trendsetter Award 2020. It made innovative use of local insights (the reality that energy levels drop post lunchtime) and daily occasions to encourage self-care and engage the general public via a high engagement digital platform (Tiktok) as well as increase awareness of online retail channels for self-care solutions.

For this initiative, a music video starring Vietnamese pop stars ISAAC and Lou Hoàng, produced by OnlyC (a very popular and famous Vietnamese music producer) was developed. The music video incorporated distinctive green and orange Berocca brand colors, while the dance moves mirrored the Berocca drinking ritual and told people to Get Supercharged at 2pm during the afternoon slump. Using the music video as a launching pad, Berocca also kickstarted a dance challenge on TikTok (#BeroccaMango2PM), calling on people to replicate the Berocca dance from the music video. 

In total, the campaign has reached 85 per cent of people aged between 18-45 in Vietnam. Going a step further, the campaign resulted in over 70,000 videos created by people participating in the challenge.

This is one example of how an innovative digital campaign can become hugely successful in not only driving awareness to encourage self-care, but also driving engagement with new generations in Asean through digital platforms on the importance of self-care.