Nature's Sunshine was founded more than 50 years ago and was a pioneer in the herbal supplement space. But as the brand looked at their place in the post-COVID landscape, executives didn’t like what they saw.

“We're the best kept secret,” said Stephanie O’Farrell, vice president of marketing at Nature's Sunshine. “We've been around the longest, but nobody knows who we are.”

To that end, the brand has been working since 2022 with Stagwell-owned agency Crispin to “create work that works,” as the shop says. A remit that originally focused around performance marketing and media optimization has culminated with the launch this month of Nature’s Sunshine’s first integrated brand platform, inclusive of a new brand tone and visual language across its marketing.

“Be More Earth” is the embodiment of the brand’s ethos around relying on what it sees as the planet’s innate healing powers to drive all parts of its business — from sourcing ingredients around the world, manufacturing everything it sells and quality testing everything in its solar-powered facility — a process the brand believes provides a competitive advantage. Nature’s Sunshine had one of its strongest quarters ever in Q4 2024, with net sales up 8.5%.

“We wanted to create some calmness and some simplicity [in the space], and get to the crux of what's really important, and that's about the magic that Earth can actually provide to the healing journey that consumers are looking for,” O’Farrell said.

More than just ‘label candy’

Crispin oversees strategy, brand platform and positioning, design, web and media for Nature’s Sunshine, and the agency’s studio practice created a new visual identity that the brand hopes will be seen as awe-inspiring in a crowded market. The pandemic accelerated attention and investment in the health and wellness category as consumers reexamined their relationships with their bodies, but an influx of brands has created chaos and complexity as they navigate a new wave of products.

“Everybody's showing up with a vitamin bottle with natural ingredients and saying, ‘I'm high quality, I’m sustainably packaged. I'll make you feel XYZ,’” O’Farrell explained. “The hope was to… show up in a more real, approachable, authentic, organic way and reintroduce people to the power and the beauty the world actually has.”

Illustrations by artist Thomas Danthony bring together lifestyle, nature’s beauty and the company’s products with a simple style that relies on colors both soothing (teals, green, umber) and vibrant (red, magenta) to establish earthy, environmental textures.

The approach looks to separate Nature’s Sunshine from emerging brands that rely on “label candy” to hook consumers while the brand aims for its “prosumer” base: individuals that are passionate about health and wellness that will do their own research — not just grab an $8.99 bottle off the Walmart shelf.

“It's about understanding their needs, states, who they are and the information they're looking for, and then making sure that throughout their consumer journey we're meeting them with the information that continues to peel back the layers of the onion,” O’Farrell said.

Meeting consumers

A brand platform doesn’t work without a sound media strategy, and for Nature’s Sunshine, that means showing up not just in the digital-social feed, but creating experiences on the web and with the right PR, influencers and opinion leaders. The new work launched March 3 across the brand’s owned channels with paid media via Meta, Pinterest, Reddit, Vox, YouTube, connected TV and influencers.

“This isn't just a targeting exercise,” O’Farrell clarified. “The hope is that we can actually meet consumers where they're actually having some level of dialogue or where they're searching for solutions.”

As examples, the executive noted how consumers head to Reddit to seek out solutions, conversations and community around health and wellness, while turning to Pinterest for new recipes and workout regimens. These channels allow the brand to supplement its paid media in traditional formats like search and display.

“[Those are] great places to be part of the consumer dialogue versus just a traditional ad unit,” O’Farrell said.