On its first birthday, direct-to-consumer men’s wellness company Hims is getting a sister.
Called Hers, the brand is directly modeled after Hims — offering telemedicine services and non-prescription hair and skin-care products — but geared toward women. This includes access to birth control pills; a prescription-strength retinol cream, acne cream and Melasma corrector cream; Addyi for hyposexual desire disorder; and minoxidil for hair thinning and a conditioner.
Hims, like fellow DTC personal-care brands Harry’s, Keeps and Dollar Shave Club, has been savvy with its use of technology and direct customer communication to sell products. Within four months of its November 2017 launch, Hims was valued at $200 million, according to Wired.
The company has grown rapidly in its first year — scaling from 13 full-time employees at launch to 38 now, with the help of $97 million in funding. The company also has 64 contractors working on customer service versus just one this time last year. To help prepare for the debut of Hers, the brand also added 50 telemedicine doctors in the past 60 days for a total of 175, according to Hilary Coles, brand lead at Hims and Hers.
The hope is the brand’s approach attracting male customers will also work with women with Hers. Still, the company has adjusted its strategy to be more relevant to a female audience. For example, while Hers imagery is supposed to humorously mirror Hims in the way women are shown applying creams or washing their hair, Hers does not apply euphemisms — like flaccid cacti, which have been used for Hims branding around erectile dysfunction — because of messaging differences between men and women, Coles said.
“When we launched Hims, [it] was all about making sure that guys understood that it is not weird to want to take care of yourself,” Coles said. “But for women, as you dig into [the industry], everything is ‘self-care.’ That puts the onus on women [saying], ‘I know you’re busy, but also, do this 12-step skin-care routine.’ There is almost a paternalistic approach to lifestyle brands out there, and it gets a little overwhelming.”
Instead, Hers is planning on providing detailed information about its products, but it also does not want to make assumptions about customers’ lifestyle or psychographics. Instead, Hers is leaving it up to the telemedicine doctors to speak with specific customers about what works best for them.
“As we looked at what [facial products] are out on the market, we saw that if you aren’t applying something with prescription power, you’re just applying marketing. We wanted to keep our dialogue straightforward with women,” said Coles of Hers.
Much like Hims, Hers will have a dedicated blog called Savoir Vivre (Hims’ is called Savoir Faire) that lives on its own website. Notably, anyone who was involved in Hers, including photographers for imagery and a copywriter on content, is a woman, Coles said.
