Sleeper Brands

Back again.

Since the last issue, there’s been no shortage of activity across consumer health.

In this issue, I’ll be discussing how heritage brands are adapting to today’s health-conscious consumer. We’ll explore Casio’s entry into smart rings and the timeless edge of brands like Maximuscle and Kellogg’s.

Coming up:

• How heritage brands are finding new relevance in health
• The rise of personalised supplements with Yutrients
• Spotify’s push into digital fitness

Let’s unpack it.

Consumer health is obsessed with what's next.

Every week there's another AI health coach, smart wearable, functional beverage or longevity startup promising to reinvent wellness.

Yet some of the most interesting moves aren't coming from startups at all. They're coming from brands that have been around for decades.

Brands consumers already like, know and trust.

I think of them as Sleeper Brands 🥷

I borrowed this from TikTok's "sleeper build" trend - someone who looks ordinary in a hoodie but is actually jacked underneath. A sleeper brand works the same way. It can sometimes appear overlooked, but underneath the assets are invauable.

Casio spent decades building a cult following through durable digital watches, not health technology. Yet its move into smart rings shows how a familiar, trusted brand can enter a new category with built-in credibility. As consumers become more selective about who they trust with their health data (hello Fitbit), familiarity matters.

Meanwhile, Kellogg’s is responding to a different challenge - cereal's changing reputation. Consumers are becoming more focused on protein, fibre and simpler ingredients, leading Kellogg’s to introduce SPOONS, an on-pack nutrition guide designed to highlight the benefits of its classic products, preserving what consumers love while adapting to what they now value.

MaxiNutrition, formerly Maximuscle, also demonstrates the power of category authority. While newer brands compete through influencers and aesthetics, MaxiNutrition benefits from decades spent building expertise in sports nutrition. Their recent Cyclone Clear innovation shows how they’re combining a wealth of experience with modern product development.

The advantage for these brands is that they already own what newer companies are trying to build. As consumer expectations evolve, decades of brand equity can become their biggest asset.

→ Emerging products to watch.

We’re talking about building your own supplements.

Yutrients is turning supplement stacks into one personalised daily formula, allowing customers to build a custom blend from more than 190 ingredients. The UK brand replaces multiple bottles and one-size-fits-all multivitamins with a single made-to-order scoop, using AI-guided recommendations, clinical dosing, and full ingredient transparency with no proprietary blends. Explore further.

The spotlight is on Casio! 🐐

Casio has launched the CRW-H001, a smart ring watch visually based on the CRW-001-1ER. The new model evolves Casio’s miniature digital watch concept into a connected health wearable, adding heart rate, blood oxygen, sleep, body temperature, activity tracking, and smartphone notifications. Currently available only in China, the device shows the growing convergence of traditional watches, jewellery, and discreet health-focused wearables competing with products like Oura Ring. Dive deeper.

Say hello to pharma-grade longevity nutraceuticals and experimental ingredients.

Sooo.me is taking a formulation-first approach to longevity supplements, focusing on evidence-based ingredients and transparency. The Lithuanian brand creates science-backed supplements while also helping cafés and restaurants build functional drink menus using pure, single-ingredient powders with no fillers or proprietary blends. Read more.

Onnit has launched NMN + Creatine, combining a proven performance ingredient with a longevity-focused compound in a simple daily formula. The supplement pairs 5g of creatine monohydrate with NMN, a precursor to NAD+, aiming to support physical performance, cellular energy, and healthy aging. According to Examine (July 2026), the current evidence base is insufficient to confirm NMN’s effects in humans, and further large-scale studies are required. View product.

→ The latest moves in consumer health this week.

P&G has agreed to acquire Thorne from L Catterton for $3.8B, adding the science-backed supplement brand to its health care portfolio. The deal follows Thorne’s rapid growth, with the company reportedly on track to reach $650M in annual revenue.

OpenStrap has released an experimental update for Edge, its open-source, self-hosted WHOOP companion app, adding compatibility with WHOOP 5.0. The community-built project gives users more control over their biometric data and health insights.

Spotify has introduced Running Mode, a new feature that creates personalised running sessions based on users’ goals, music taste, tempo, duration, and BPM. The feature is currently available to Premium iOS users in select markets, with 25 workout presets including interval, steady, and pyramid runs.

Function has raised $450M in growth funding to expand its personalised health platform, which combines blood testing, whole-body MRI scans, and health insights. The funding follows its acquisitions of Ezra, Getlabs, and SuppCo as the company pushes further into preventative health.

→ ClassPass

ClassPass is a membership that gives you access to thousands of gyms, fitness classes and wellness experiences through a single app.

I used the 14-day free trial while visiting Lisbon recently and it genuinely made the trip. I trained at The Collective Fitness, Embody Lisboa, discovered studios I wouldn’t have booked otherwise, and found it was a great way to meet people in a new city.

ClassPass’s strongest discovery channels are currently TikTok, Instagram and Reddit, suggesting the brand benefits from community-driven discovery and peer recommendations.

Reading through Reddit, the same themes came up repeatedly. Users value the ability to combine strength training, Pilates, yoga and recovery without paying for multiple memberships. Others said it was the only financially viable way to access different studios, while features like credit rollover and late cancellation fees helped create accountability.

Interestingly, ClassPass isn’t solely a consumer product. It’s a marketplace solving a major problem for fitness and wellness businesses: unused capacity.

Studios have high fixed costs, but an empty class spot disappears forever. ClassPass helps fill those spaces by introducing new customers, with the company reporting that 94% of users are new to the fitness venues they visit through the platform.

The app still has room for refinement, however. I found it slightly buggy at times and some experiences felt overcrowded, but the underlying proposition is compelling.

I think this is a strong example of where consumer fitness memberships may be heading - towards greater flexibility and choice.

🛒 Click here to explore their plans.

This week the theme is health disinformation.

And there is arguably no better platform to examine than LinkedIn.

LinkedIn has become an ideal environment for health disinformation to spread for several reasons:

This tool lets you fact-check LinkedIn health posts against the current scientific evidence base, to find out whether your go-to health guru on LinkedIn is acting in good faith or just following the charlatan handbook.

In my experience, it's often the latter.

→ Put your LinkedIn health guru to the test

The primary focus over the last 48 hours has been building the distribution engine: publishing across relevant short-form social platforms and creating a repeatable content workflow.

It hasn’t gone to plan, but the process is moving in the right direction.

First, I spent time analysing how competitors approach reactive content.

Their workflow typically looks something like this:

To test the approach, I created this example using Garmin’s recent CIRQA Smart Band launch and the Garmin x Clue integration. Each piece took around 5 minutes to create.

Looks familiar, right?

I’m self-aware enough to know that posting this kind of reactive content would make me feel dead inside, so I won’t be pushing it.

That said, I do think it has a place when there’s a story I genuinely feel is underreported and where I can add something beyond repeating the announcement.

Progress.

That leaves short-form vertical video.

This will become the overwhelming distribution format for the channel across Instagram, TikTok, YouTube Shorts, and LinkedIn.

I love the packaging from Wellworthy Media and Last to Know Studio, and I’ll mainly be using that style as the foundation for my videos.

I just need to figure out the CapCut / DaVinci Resolve workflow needed to create that type of content efficiently over the next 48 hours.

The key differentiator I’ll be aiming for is adding appropriate critique alongside promotion - a slightly riskier approach, but potentially a more interesting one.

Lastly, I went looking for attention arbitrage.

Where are my competitors not posting?

Lemon8? Pinterest? Reddit?

Are these actually relevant platforms for the type of content I’ll be creating?

I landed on Reddit for comments and image-based posts, although I’ll be treating it as an experiment rather than a core channel.

By the next issue, I should have my first few social posts live, which I’ll link here for feedback 😬