• by Les Luchter , June 3, 2024

Two-year-old digestive health brand Wonderbelly continues its rapid growth into over-the-counter (OTC) retail aisles today with an exclusive drugstore launch in CVS stores nationwide.

The move comes a year after an initial national retail rollout at Target and continues what Noah Kraft, one of Wonderbelly’s two co-founding brothers, tells Marketing Daily is a strategy of adding “one major retailer per year where we can really drive traffic.”

Wonderbelly has two product lines: Wonderbelly Antacid, with the same active ingredient as Tums, and the recently launched Wonderbelly Bloat + Gas Relief, with the same active ingredient as Gas-X. Both Tums and Gas-X are marketed by Haleon.

Noah hints that alternatives to Kenvue’s anti-diarrheal Imodium and Procter & Gamble’s stomach soother Pepto Bismol are also in the pipeline.

The difference between Wonderbelly and those other OTC products? A major one is clean ingredients, says co-founder Lucas Kraft. “We remove genetically modified ingredients, artificial dyes, artificial sweeteners and a laundry list of ingredients,” he explains.

This aspect is especially important to Wonderbelly’s core consumer of 19- to 45-year-old females, notes Noah, who cites, for example, pregnant women who are “very concerned about what they’re putting in their bodies.”

Inactive ingredients in other brands are unnecessary but included for two reasons, he says: "They’re cheap or they create aesthetics, like the dye used to make a product pink.”

Another difference between Wonderbelly and other OTC digestive brands, Lucas says, is sustainability, which “a lot of these big corporate brands haven’t really made enough of an effort to address.

A third difference is “mission-based”: “We really want to connect with the consumer. We don’t want to be a transactional brand that’s cold, corporate and sterile, just sitting on the shelf….“We’ve listened to younger consumers, millennials specifically, who are now experiencing issues like heartburn at a greater rate than older generations were."

The brand has also become known for its bold, colorful packaging, numerous flavor offerings, and in-store signage.

“We want to humanize these products,” Lucas explains. ”Getting relief should be enjoyable through and through.”

Wonderbelly’s retail marketing includes free-standing endcaps and sidecaps outside the aisle, as well as in-aisle trays/risers and talker boxes (signage next to the product), all designed in-house.

“When you’re standing in front of a wall of Tums, we immediately stand out, not only from an aesthetic standpoint, but [the included info] explains why we’re differentiated,” says Noah.

“We try to take a page out of the beauty playbook, whether it’s Nivea or Manscaped or Native,” says Lucas. “No one does that in OTC. We’re saying OTC can be sexy, fun, informative and young.”

Because “we live on the shelf next to the heritage brands,” and because “this is a bottom of the funnel purchase,” Noah explains, “we determined early on that we were going to be a retail-centric business…We focus on that in-store experience, particularly because we are not spending money on ecommerce [which accounts for only 20% of Wonderbelly’s sales] and conversion.”

Besides differing from other OTC brands, Wonderbelly is determined to distinguish itself from digestive supplements like probiotics, both by downplaying ecommerce and by emphasizing that its products are FDA-regulated. “Supplements and a lot of other products in the gastro and digestive space cannot guarantee their efficaciousness,” says Noah.  “We are a medicine. We’re not on that other shelf with the organics. We’re not Impossible Meat, we’re Shake Shack.”

Wonderbelly also eschews using spokespeople or influencers, says Lucas, even though it counts such celebrities as Demi Moore as investors. “We really want our product to speak for itself…We want the credibility to come from the scientific and media community.”

“We stand behind the product, not behind an individual who is selling the product,” echoes Noah. “There’s a reason Advil doesn’t have a spokesperson.”

Outside of stores, Wonderbelly’s consumer outreach includes de-stigmatization efforts such as a recently launched partnership with the National Eating Disorder Association. Activities include appearances by Lucas recounting his own background with digestive issues.

He’s also just written a coffee table book, “An Adult’s Guide to Farts,” which Wonderbelly is selling online only as part of a "Big Bloat and Book Bundel."

“It’s okay to fart,” he says. “It’s okay to feel bloated. The entire idea behind the book is to get you to smile."