HEALTH | EYE AND EAR CARE
Eyes — and Ears — on the Horizon What trends are shaping the eye and ear care categories? By David Salazar
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onsumers — and retailers — are turning their attention to a spurt of activity in the burgeoning eye and ear segments. In fact, a push towards self-care, as well as a continuing focus on more natural products and the rise of e-commerce and omnichannel, is helping the segments get more attention on retail shelves and drive a simmering need to innovate by a number of manufacturers. The result, many said, is a strong uptick in interest in the category among consumers,
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who are eager for more quality and variation from the categories and seem willing to pay for it. Yet it is self-care, a hot topic in the OTC space even before anyone had heard of COVID-19, that is starting to play a major role in eye and ear segments and taking relatively staid categories and adding some excitement to them. A February report from L.E.K. Consulting, a global agency with its largest office in Boston, took a look at the top consumer health trends brought about by the
COVID-19 pandemic. Its authors, Adrienne Rivlin and Geoff Parkin, said that a major trend is a focus on self-care solutions. L.E.K.’s report cited European research from GSK Consumer Healthcare, which found that 65% of consumers in Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom are more likely to consider their health when making day-to-day decisions, and 80% said they would pursue self-care offerings to help unburden health systems that have been stretched thin by the pandemic. For executives at companies playing in eye
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