Mental health is changing what people expect from digital services, physical spaces, consumer products, and the brands that want to matter in an increasingly uncertain world.
Mildberry
September 2022
7 minutes
Periods of instability tend to heighten anxiety, fear, and a sense of powerlessness. The pandemic and isolation, climate concerns, international conflict, economic pressure, nonstop news cycles, and permanent digital connection have created a level of stress that many people struggle to process.
Nearly one billion people worldwide live with a mental disorder. During the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, anxiety and depressive disorders increased by 26% and 28%, respectively. Depression and anxiety alone cost the global economy an estimated $1 trillion every year.
Mental health affects nearly every part of life: work, education, relationships, physical health, and people’s ability to participate fully in society. The demand for support is growing, and businesses are increasingly becoming part of the response.
Mental health is not just a healthcare issue. It is shaping the way people choose products, services, workplaces, and brands.
What This Means for Brands
People are no longer simply buyers. They are users who expect intuitive, convenient, and emotionally considerate experiences from every platform they use. This matters even more when a service addresses something as personal as anxiety, depression, stress, or insomnia.
The meditation app market illustrates the scale of this shift. It was valued at $520 million in 2017 and reached $4.75 billion in 2020. By the end of 2027, it is projected to grow to $14 billion.
Calm creates a disciplined, peaceful environment through cool tones, generous space, and nature imagery. Headspace takes a different approach, using warm colors, friendly vector illustrations, flexible graphic elements, and expert-led tools for meditation, sleep, stress, and mental-health support. Both show that branding is not merely visual. In mental-health services, it is part of the emotional architecture of the experience.
Digital platforms are also making professional support easier to access. Cerebral expanded access to online mental-health support for people dealing with anxiety, depression, and insomnia.
The same change is taking place in the workplace. Lyra Health offers mental-health benefits through employer programs, while Spill helps organizations create more emotionally open cultures through check-ins, therapy, coaching, and management training.
Projected value of the global meditation app market by the end of 2027.Source: Grand View Research
SIGNALS TO WATCH
Meditation and sleep apps · Online therapy platforms · On-demand consultations · Employer mental-health benefits · Emotionally intelligent UX
In mental-health services, branding is not decoration. It is part of the conditions that make help feel accessible.
Digital tools expand access, but they do not eliminate the need for physical spaces, real conversation, and offline support.
77% of consumers try to take breaks from smartphones and computers as part of looking after their well-being. As digital life becomes more closely associated with overstimulation and anxiety, people will increasingly value services that offer a route back to human contact, presence, and recovery.
Self Space developed an on-demand model for psychological support. Clients can book a time and visit for therapy, coaching, or simply what the company describes as a good conversation with a qualified person. The concept removes practical and emotional barriers that can prevent people from asking for help.
CVS MinuteClinic integrated accessible care into everyday retail, making routine health services easier to access through its clinic network.
New social formats are responding to the same need. Mental-health cafés can create safe spaces where people share experiences, join discussions, and build community. Head Room Café, supported by mental-health charity Jami, brought this model into a coffee-shop setting.
Move Your Frame organizes workouts by mood: Box Fit is designed to release tension, Frame Lift supports confidence and inner strength, and Cardio is positioned as a way to clear the mind and generate endorphins.
Of consumers try to take breaks from smartphones and computers as part of maintaining their well-being.Source: GWI
SIGNALS TO WATCH
On-demand therapy · Mental-health cafés · Retail health hubs · Mood-based fitness · Community-led support spaces
The next step in care is not simply more access. It is less friction, more human contact, and a clearer reason to walk in.
Consumer brands are responding to growing demand for calm, focus, energy, sleep, and more restorative daily rituals.
The opportunity is especially visible in categories where people already create small moments of care throughout the day: beverages, snacks, supplements, beauty, home fragrance, and sleep products. These products do not replace professional support or clinical care. They can, however, create sensory rituals associated with comfort, pause, and restoration.
Recess has developed a portfolio of sodas and drink powders with adaptogens and magnesium, positioned around staying calm and centered in an anxious world. PepsiCo’s Soulboost soda offered two distinct effects: Lift, with ginseng extract for energy, and Ease, with L-theanine for calm.
The trend also extends to snacking. PYM developed candies with amino acids, positioned around navigating life’s ups and downs.
Sleep has become another major space for product innovation. Gravity developed weighted blankets designed to create the feeling of an embrace and support deeper rest. This Works combines skincare with candles, sleep sprays, and roller fragrances that turn winding down into a more deliberate ritual.
Estimated annual cost of depression and anxiety to the global economy.Source: World Health Organization
SIGNALS TO WATCH
Adaptogenic beverages · Functional snacks · Sleep rituals · Weighted products · Sensory home wellness
When the world feels unpredictable, Everyday rituals can become a form of reassurance.
Brands do not need to operate in healthcare to contribute meaningfully to mental well-being. Their role may be to make support easier to find, reduce stigma, fund access to professional care, create relevant content, or start conversations that people might otherwise avoid. One-off statements and mental-health-themed campaigns are not enough when the subject is personal, sensitive, and deeply tied to trust.
Maybelline developed Brave Together as an international initiative across the United States, Europe, Asia, and Africa. The platform offers resources for self-support and helping others, alongside a text-based support line. Over five years, the company committed to raising $10 million to fund one million therapy sessions.
Gymshark addressed mental health among men through its Deload campaign. The brand created a temporary barbershop, using a familiar and socially comfortable setting to host discussions, speakers, and fundraising activity for Campaign Against Living Miserably.
Madhappy built its brand around optimism, community, and ongoing mental-health engagement. Its Local Optimist community, podcast, and Madhappy Foundation extend the brand beyond apparel, while 1% of every purchase is donated to mental-health organizations.
Maltesers has worked with Comic Relief for more than a decade to support mothers experiencing psychological difficulties during pregnancy and the first year after childbirth. Its #TheMassiveOvershare campaign invited mothers to share honest thoughts about motherhood, while #LoveBeatsLikes encouraged people to offer support rather than simply react online.
SIGNALS TO WATCH
Long-term brand initiatives · Mental-health funding · Stigma-reducing campaigns · Community platforms · Relevant cultural spaces · Supportive content
A brand does not earn trust by talking about mental health. It earns trust by making support more real, more visible, and more available.
Mental health is becoming critically important to society, and its influence extends far beyond healthcare. It is reshaping digital platforms, employee expectations, retail experiences, consumer products, public spaces, and the role brands are expected to play in people’s lives.
For companies, this creates a responsibility as well as an opportunity. The most relevant brands will not simply communicate care. They will reduce friction, create conditions for support, and offer products, services, experiences, and communities that make everyday life feel more manageable.
Make products, platforms, and services easier to approach. In sensitive categories, clarity, calm, privacy, and emotional reassurance are core parts of the experience.
Support can live in digital tools, retail formats, fitness environments, hospitality spaces, and community platforms. The goal is to remove barriers and make help feel practical, human, and available.
Develop products and rituals that support rest, focus, calm, energy, or sleep—while avoiding exaggerated health claims and respecting the difference between everyday well-being and professional care.
Use brand reach, funding, content, partnerships, and long-term programs to make meaningful support visible. The strongest initiatives are sustained, accountable, and grounded in genuine usefulness. The most valuable brands will be those that offer people more than a message of optimism. They will become a source of clarity, care, and practical support in a world that often feels difficult to navigate.
In an uncertain world, the most valuable brands are the ones people can lean on.
Keep your mind in balance