quantilope's Body Wash Better Brand Health Tracking study has officially been live for a full year, trending insights from May 2024 to May 2025.
The Better Brand Health Tracking (BBHT) approach
BBHT originates from Professor Jenni Romaniuk's work at the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Science. It was introduced as a way to track insights over time that were more actionable than typical brand funnel tracker metrics (awareness, consideration, and usage). BBHT studies are built on several key concepts, starting with Category Entry Points (why, when, and where consumers think about shopping in your category in the first place), Mental Availability metrics (which specific brands come to mind in those buying scenarios), and Mental Advantage analysis (which brands perform better or worse than expected).
Another key differentiator of BBHT studies is the design; BBHT studies are designed for a category as a whole, not for one particular brand. The idea is that any brand/competitor in the category should be able to leverage the study for insights, ensuring a comprehensive view of the market. Insights teams then analyze for category buyers and can report on the brand level in their final deliverable. In this syndicated study, we chose to narrow in on Native as the brand for reporting (analyzed among US consumers who have purchased body wash in the past 6 months). Our study runs once a quarter, capturing responses among 600 participants, and May 2025 marks our 5th wave of tracking insights.
Let's explore what's changed over the past year in the US body wash category.
One year of Native body wash insights
Since the start of our tracking study in May 2024, Dove remains a clear leader in the US body wash market - even far outperforming other major industry names like Olay, Dial, and Suave for Mental Availability metrics. Native trails these major competitors (and most others tracked), though has continuously performed better than smaller brand Lumē and Target's store-brand, up&up. These competitive positions have stayed mostly stable throughout the past year.
Native's performance for Mental Availability metrics has remained more or less unchanged year-over-year, with the exception of Mental Market Share (MMS) which significantly declined in August and November 2024 (waves 2 and 3) but has since returned to its benchmark level. MMS is a measure of how 'present' a brand is in consumers' minds with regard to all Category Entry Points (CEPs) and brands. The higher the MMS, the stronger a brand's Mental Availability.
Native has very strong brand positioning, as a body wash brand known for all natural and sustainable ingredients, but is struggling to reach non-buyers in order to grow and more closely compete with the bigger industry players.
To explore more year-over-year body wash insights and review our recommendations for Native's future brand growth, access the study's dashboard below!
