Bayer Consumer Health has launched into the menopause category with CanesMeno, a product range and service. Building on the trusted Canesten brand’s 40-year heritage in women’s health, this launch represents an expansion that combines digital innovation with scientifically-backed products.
With around 13 million women in the UK experiencing perimenopause or menopausal symptoms, CanesMeno combines a free digital education hub with targeted products, demonstrating how brands can create comprehensive solutions that go beyond traditional products to deliver genuine consumer value.
The educational CanesMeno Hub provides personalised tracking and educational resource recognizing that ‘one-size-fits-all’ solutions is not effective when it comes to menopause, with signs and symptoms varying in women across different age groups. By developing a range that includes both digital support and physical products – from vaginal dryness gel to targeted supplements – the Bayer have moved beyond just creating products but taking the next step to help educate and empower women to navigate their own experience and needs with confidence.
A 10-minute e-learning Continued Professional Development (CPD) module is also available on the Bayer Learning e-platform via the CIG group, plus online learning modules for Boots pharmacy teams and healthcare specialists.
The commitment to healthcare professional education through CPD modules and pharmacy team training takes Bayer’s new launch to a new levels – demonstrating how brands can support the wider healthcare ecosystem. This multi-stakeholder approach, combined with Bayer’s internal commitment to supporting employees through menopause, demonstrates how brands can drive positive change.
There has been an emerging rhetoric in consumer marketing and especially consumer healthcare for many years… if only we could merge the product solution (potentially quite generic) with services (that personalise, engage and help people beyond the, often transactional, usage experience) then brands can truly add value and distinctiveness.
There is a long way to go, but examples like this are genuinely exciting. Like all trail blazing, the journey will be bumpy, not everything will work, one step forward etc. But brands lead and Bayer recognise this will be a big part of the future for healthcare. AI – in a positive sense – will accelerate this. Bayer have a ‘Precision Health’ unit focused on building solutions like this. Menopause is a good early adopter opportunity and in Canesten they have a strong brand to lead it.
The menopause is a complicated, highly personal experience. It is not a typical ‘problem-solution’ consumer healthcare situation. It has lifestyle and emotional impacts beyond any symptoms. An ‘app’ is never the answer, but it is logical to imagine consumers welcoming a product plus service solution. The challenge for health brands is to work out how to add service value in more transactional categories – pain, cold & flu, indigestion etc. Maybe this will never be possible, as consumers are happy to use a problem solution approach, and most of us don’t need another ‘service’ in our lives! But perhaps as tech and our complex lifestyle and wellbeing needs lead to ever higher demands for personalised results, even these categories will see brand innovation in effective, engaging services. Probably it is not if, but when.
For now, a big tick for Bayer and this innovative work. It’s #WhatBrandsDo.