The desire for “vitality” is one that commonly surfaces in consumer research. And with many benefit areas—heart, digestive, weight and others—seeming to be increasingly crowded competitive spaces, the “white space” opportunity of vitality appeals to the growing number of food, beverage and supplement companies worldwide, who are appropriating the term “vitality” and using it to position and market new products.

“Vitality” has become a promise for several general-nutrition supplements, including one from Nu Skin called AgeLoc Vitality. The concept is also being attached to more food and beverage products. In perhaps the most notable appearance of this attribute in the mainstream market so far, Kraft’s Trident gum brand has just introduced a new line called Vitality that includes vitamin C, white tea and other ingredients.

The Psychology of Vitality

Because vitality is a relatively amorphous concept, no one is sure exactly what it means. That’s why vitality positioning represents both an attractive and yet open opportunity for marketers scratching for growth in a better-for-you arena where few untested propositions remain.

“Vitality is a psychological key that says, ‘Live longer; live better,’” said Tom Pirko, president of Bevmark Consulting, a leading strategic, product and branding advisor to global beverage giants. “But we’re early on in this. Mainstream companies are still turning it over to their marketing departments to provide a clearer definition. We’re at the first stage.”

In fact, in the case of “vitality,” checking a dictionary isn’t such a bad idea. “Capacity to live and develop” is how the Merriam-Webster U.S. Dictionary defines the term. “Physical or mental vigor especially when highly developed.”

Yet vitality as an operative concept for food, beverage and supplement businesses means something a little bit different to everyone who is invested in it, as it does to consumers. Here is a sampling of the various ways those in the industry have described vitality to us:

“Vitality can mean whatever you want it to mean, which is why it’s a claim that the industry likes.”

“Vitality is not an ingredient. It’s an experience.”

“Vitality is a little part of that puzzle of feeling better. It’s psychological as much as it is biochemical.”

“Vitality isn’t the same thing as wellness. Wellness is defined by the lack of any health problems; it’s a broader term.”

“Vitality certainly suggests health and wellness in its broadest sense. But more specifically, it suggests energy and, potentially longevity—that you’ll live a healthier lifestyle and less will go wrong if you can grasp vitality.”

“Vitality lacks a regulatory definition. There is no measuring stick for it. It’s all based on the reported experiences of the consumer.”

“Vitality is more of a marketing thing. And hand in hand, it’s synonymous with health and wellness.”

“‘Vitality’ is just a new term for ‘energy,’ I think. But the market will tell.”

Product Opportunities & Demographics

The reasons for greater industry and consumer interest in vitality seem to be threefold.

First, the attention to vitality positioning appears to be a reaction against the use of what used to be a synonymous term: “energy.” Many in the industry believe that the growth of the energy drink segment has narrowed the classic definition of energy so that consumers are only capable of thinking of it in the sense of Red Bull or Monster beverages, or 5 Hour Energy shots.

And energy drinks are often associated with the “crash” that consumers experience once the stimulants—typically caffeine and taurine—and the sugar rush they provide wear off.

“We have a whole rash of what I call energy loan-shark drinks, but people are starting to wise up,” said Dr. Jacob Teitelbaum, author of the book From Fatigued to Fantastic and medical director of the Fibromyalgia and Fatigue Centers, which focus on restoring vitality for chronic-fatigue patients. He also markets a line of vitality-oriented supplements, with profits going to charity.

“People are recognizing that these drinks are nutritionally deficient. And they’re getting sicker and sicker and sicker with these drinks, and many are starting to understand that they want healthy energy—they want to feel vitality.”

Shawn Talbott, a nutritional biochemist, said, “the challenge for marketers has been finding ways to describe ‘mental-physical energy’ outside of the caffeine-sugar rush of sports drinks and energy shots.” But the Salt Lake City-based researcher and author prefers to use the term “vigor” to describe what others call “vitality.”

“The use of ‘vitality’ in the market is mostly just a new-agey way of saying ‘energy’ and is not really hitting the sweet spot of vigor that is lacking in so many people,” said Mr. Talbott, who has written a book about the vigor concept.

Second, the concept of vitality is increasingly important to Baby Boomers, whose leading edge is now beginning to reach the conventional retirement age of 65. As a generation, especially in the U.S., Baby Boomers have defined and redefined every cultural, medical and social institution as they have matured and aged.

There is every reason to believe their quest for vitality—whether they define it that way or not—will shape much of the direction of the better-for-you market during the next several years. “If you’re a senior citizen, you think about vitality more than anything else,” quipped Mr. Pirko, himself a member of the leading edge of Baby Boomers. “If not, you’re dead.”

But the desire for vitality isn’t restricted to those 45-and-older. “When people talked about vitality, it used to be imagining older people who were trying to get back their youth,” said Rachel Geller, chief strategic officer of Geppetto Group, a New York-based strategic-marketing agency. “But now, vitality also has been embraced by young people as a feeling of balance and that all four spheres of the individual—emotional, physical, intellectual and spiritual—are being helped from the inside out.”

Third, there is a sense that vitality is a tonic for many Westerners of all ages who have been beaten down by the global recession and its aftermath.

“Consumers are reacting to the combination of things affecting them right now,” Mr. Pirko explained. “In the pelting that they’re getting from these other things, they’re searching for ideas and concepts for feeling better, and vitality is one of them.”

Who’s Already Delivering Vitality?

The supplement industry is experimenting with a wide range of ingredient combinations in a quest to deliver a credible vitality benefit. Provo, UT-based Nu Skin has embraced the vitality concept in a new supplement product called AgeLoc Vitality, which is geared toward improving what the company calls “the three dimensions of vitality: physical vigor, mental acuity and sexual health.” It’s meant to be the “uncola” by contrast with energy drinks, according to Kevin Fuller, vice president of global marketing for the multi-level marketing firm.

Instead, AgeLoc Vitality battles “the low-energy, sluggish feeling” experienced by aging individuals by repairing what the company calls “youth gene clusters” that are related to the aging process. AgeLoc does so by improving the function of the body’s mitochondria, the “digestive system” of the cell that takes in nutrients, breaks them down and distributes them as energy. Nu Skin calls mitochondria “a key source of youthful vitality.”

AgeLoc Vitality contains several key ingredients, including extracts of pomegranate and Asian ginseng as well as Cordyceps Cs-4 mushroom mycelia. Nu Skin says that initial findings from a survey found that 90% of consumers who tried AgeLoc Vitality “felt positive changes in fatigue levels while taking it or noticed an increase in fatigue after discontinuing use.”

Research informed Nu Skin about each of the ways in which a new supplement could address consumer desires about restoration of vitality.

“We found there was basically a disconnect between what people thought was available to them and what their needs actually were,” Mr. Fuller explained. “They’re familiar with stimulants to overcome simple fatigue. But what they’re experiencing is more than just simple fatigue, and so they were dissatisfied with the side effects of simple stimulants.”

Individuals “don’t want to be spun up and agitated in the way that caffeine can make you feel,” Mr. Fuller added. “But they do aspire to have a baseline energy level that goes up, like a tide rises—instead of peaks and valleys.”

Decline of mental acuity is “another strong fear that people have” as they age, Mr. Fuller pointed out. “Many of them are professionals who are concerned about performance in the workplace. And, third, consumers were interested in a product that conferred ‘sexual benefits’ such as increasing libido and desire—not necessarily functional benefits.”

Interestingly, he offered, Nu Skin found a commonality in these desires among aging consumers in its markets worldwide; the company generates only 17% of its sales in the U.S. “The only significant difference in how consumers in various markets perceived the benefits,” Mr. Fuller noted, “is a greater focus in some Asian markets on sexual vitality. This tends to get more play in Asia, and they tend to be more comfortable talking about it.”

Mr. Fuller said Nu Skin does produce drinks, such as a superfruit-based beverage, but that it chose a capsule form of delivery for AgeLoc Vitality. “Putting it in a ready-to-drink liquid would have pushed people to compare it with energy products, which we didn’t think would be advantageous to us.”

Moreover, including efficacious amounts of the active ingredients required concentrations that would have prohibited a drink from tasting good, he says. And because the effects of AgeLoc Vitality take up to a month to manifest themselves in the body, Nu Skin wanted to contrast the product with the “immediate effects” expected from an energy drink. Nu Skin developed a mix-in powder variety for AgeLoc Vitality, he added, “but in the end, focus groups of consumers didn’t see the benefits of having a mix-in versus a capsule.”

Another supplement brand, Genr8, is partially adopting vitality positioning for its Vitargo S2 supplement, a patented starch extract marketed by the Dana Point, CA-based performance-nutrition company. But Genr8 does so only in the limited context of “use for intensely training individuals,” explained Anthony Almada, president and CEO.

Trident seems to be hedging its bets similarly with its own use of vitality positioning. It’s true that, with its new Vitality brand, Trident is stepping over a line that most confectionery brands have drawn between gum products and truly nutritionally functional ingredients. Most “better-for-you” gums at this point stick with relatively conventional functionality, such as fighting the bacteria that cause bad breath, and don’t deliver ingredients that form the basis of true nutrition, such as vitamins or herbs.

And Trident is touting Vitality as a “delicious piece of well-being,” boasting that one piece contains “10 percent of the daily value of vitamin C,” and includes one flavor, a Citrus-Strawberry blend called Vigorate. Other varieties include Rejuve, a blend of mint and white tea, as well as Awaken, with Peppermint flavor and “a dash of ginseng.”

The pellet-sized pieces of gum also come in a box that “clicks” when opened or closed and is aimed at a slightly older demographic than most new gum products. “One thing we found is that, as people age, the gum flavors may be less relevant to their lifestyle,” said Kraft spokesman Basil Maglaris. “This is an opportunity that we saw [to be] relevant with consumers in the 25-to-34 age range.”

Yet, while Kraft is attempting to appropriate the emotional meanings of vitality in the new Trident line and to leverage its unprecedented plunge into better-for-you ingredients, its vitality positioning really only lies on the surface and doesn’t appear as important to marketing the product as the line’s unconventional flavors. Vitality’s message will focus “more on the experience associated with the gum,” Mr. Maglaris said, in part because only one flavor has vitamin C.

In fact, Trident’s real target with Vitality appears to be Wrigley’s new gum line called 5, which is sold in slick, black-colored packs in flavors such as React, Zing and Flare.

And in its hesitance to go too far down the road of vitality positioning, Kraft may be learning from the challenges that other consumer goods companies have encountered.

In 2006, Vindi Banga, the then-president of Unilever Foods, announced at a major corporate meeting in Barcelona, Spain that Unilever would be deploying a business platform called the Vitality Life Goals Model.

“More than ever, people are looking for real solutions to achieve their goals in life,” he told the gathering. “Next to a healthy diet and good hygiene, we see that emotional well-being is an important contributor to a long and healthier life. The Vitality Life Goals really tap into the fundamental requirements of people, and we can identify opportunities right across our portfolio of brands that truly deliver holistic vitality solutions helping people look good, feel good and get more out of life.”

Fellow Unilever executive Ralph Kugler, president for home and personal care, said that Unilever would spend the majority of its $1 billion annual research budget on “vitality-driven innovation” and that 60% of the food innovations already in the Unilever pipeline at that time were “vitality-related.”

Yet, these executives never really explained exactly what they meant by “vitality” nor connected it solidly to any practical vision of how the idea could become so central to the company’s activities.

The Challenges of Pursuing Vitality

Five years later, vitality has disappeared from Unilever’s strategy—and it’s difficult even to locate a historical discussion of vitality on Unilever’s website. It’s possible that Unilever simply experienced one of the obvious limits of vitality positioning that is on the flipside of one of its biggest advantages: its vagueness.

“Look at the 2-oz. shot market and at the new products you’re seeing: condition-specific products for recovering, relaxing, sleeping—lots of conditions,” said Andy Dratt, executive vice president of Imbibe, a Wilmette, IL-based formulator of private-label, better-for-you beverages for major retailers.

“So far we’re not seeing lots and lots of vitality-themed products primarily because the industry is trying to deliver products that are benefit-oriented, and they do best when they’re well-defined—so that the consumer knows exactly what the product will deliver.”

And if any food, beverage or supplement manufacturer should seek to get more precise about rendering vitality in some kind of nutritional formula, they would face different kinds of challenges.

“It would be very difficult to do, to just put ‘vitality’ in a bottle,” said Ram Chaudhari, chief scientific officer and senior executive vice president of Fortitech, the Schenectady, NY-based firm that helps ingredient and food companies develop better-for-you products. “You’d have to have so many nutrients—proteins, carbohydrates, omega 3s, co-factors and bioactive compounds—in order to get maximum benefits. And then you’d have to get them all working optimally together.”

Mr. Chaudhari continued:  “Multivitamins are fine; they’re part of vitality—but only a subcategory. They don’t equate to vitality.

“There are 60 to 70 bioactive compounds you need for overall vitality, and it would be impossible to put them into one [product]. Plus, then you have the issue of bioavailability, and you’d have so many interactions among all of these things that you can’t even imagine them.”

Such difficulties, Mr. Chaudhari explained, are why few companies are beating down Fortitech’s door to come up with a single, comprehensive answer to the vitality challenge—and opportunity.

And the comprehensiveness of the nutrients that are required for humans to feel completely vital is one big reason that “you have to have a variety of foods, not just one beverage or food,” Mr. Chaudhari pointed out. “You can’t change your whole health condition with just one thing. It isn’t going to happen.”   

About the author: Julian Mellentin is an expert on the business of functional foods and has been involved in this area for more than 15 years. Mr. Mellentin is also the editor of New Nutrition Business, a long-established international journal on the global nutrition business. He can be reached at julian.mellentin@new-nutrition.com; Website: www.new-nutrition.com.