Hims & Hers Digital Strategy: A 45-Minute MACE Analysis
- Vanessa Marquez-Kramme
- Feb 7
- 9 min read
Updated: Feb 10
Turning a classroom assignment into a case study on Hims & Hers' digital strategy—and where they're leaving engagement on the table.
🎧 Prefer to listen? This blog post is available in audio format below.
Note: This audio was created using AI voice technology (ElevenLabs) as part of my commitment to accessible content. I wrote every word, but used AI to narrate it so I could offer this format without burning out.
The assignment was simple: Pick a digital-first brand. Analyze their strategy using the MACE framework. Prepare a presentation. Time limit: 45 minutes of research.
My professor wanted us to practice speed—the kind of rapid competitive analysis you'd do as an intern when the VP of Marketing asks for insights on a new competitor by end of day.
So I chose Hims & Hers, the telehealth platform that made buying ED medication feel as casual as ordering skincare. Forty-five minutes of research later, I had audited their digital footprint, mapped their MACE strategy, identified content gaps, and found a glaring opportunity they're missing.
Then came the presentation build.
I'll be honest—I tried Gamma first. It generated slides in seconds. They were fine. Functional. Completely soulless.
Here's the thing: one of my core values is making things on brand. I'm not interested in "fine."
So I ditched the AI-generated slides and rebuilt the presentation in Canva using a template from SlidesCarnival, matching Hims & Hers' actual brand colors, typography (the best I could), and visual style. Did it take longer than 45 minutes? Yes. Was it worth it? Absolutely.
Now I know that when time is of the essence, I can research and deliver a solid presentation in 45 minutes. But when you're delivering a pitch to a client, you need their soul reflected in the presentation. That's what I like to do—always.
Because if you're going to analyze a brand's digital strategy, the analysis itself should demonstrate strategic thinking—including how you present it.
Here's what I found.
When a Brand Makes Stigma Feel Like Skincare
Hims & Hers took some of healthcare's most uncomfortable topics—erectile dysfunction, hair loss, weight management, mental health prescriptions—and made them feel normal. Their DTC model, aesthetic packaging, and digital-first approach turned prescription refills into lifestyle products.
But here's what's interesting about being a category disruptor: once you've normalized the conversation, you need to maintain it. And that's where their digital strategy reveals some compelling gaps.
The Differentiation Play: Authenticity Over “Just Celebrity”
Let's start with what they're doing exceptionally well.
While competitor Ro named Serena Williams the global face of its GLP‑1 weight‑loss drugs at a time when her husband, Alexis Ohanian, is on Ro’s board—prompting opinion pieces and public debate about celebrity‑driven weight‑loss marketing, Hims & Hers has built credibility through authentic representation.
Sure, they work with celebrities—Kristen Bell and Miley Cyrus have both partnered with the brand. But here's the difference: these partnerships make sense. Kristen Bell has been open about her mental health challenges for years. Miley went from wrecking ball moments to finding her power and buying herself flowers—a narrative that aligns perfectly with Hims & Hers' mission of feeling good in your body so you can show up in life.
These aren't just celebrity endorsements; they're strategic storytelling partnerships where the celebrity's actual journey mirrors the brand's positioning.
Beyond celebrity, their sponsorships feel organic: Armchair Expert, The Skinny Confidential, Pardon My Take. They’ve also sponsored other podcasts across sports and comedy, placing ads in male‑skewed shows where topics like performance, confidence, and relationships naturally surface. This is smart. When you consider case studies like Nivea destigmatizing skincare and mental health in the UK through soccer partnerships, you see the strategy: sports podcasts give Hims access to hypermasculine spaces where "don't talk about it" is the norm. That's exactly where destigmatization conversations need to happen.
The His/Hers brand architecture works commercially, even if it may face limitations as gender norms evolve. Right now, it creates targeted messaging that resonates. You're not just buying hair treatment; you're buying for men or for women, with platforms that speak directly to different experiences.
They essentially took clinical healthcare and made it desirable—the same transformation luxury brands do with functional products like leather goods or watches. Except they did it while navigating medical advertising restrictions, building trust in stigmatized categories, and creating desire around self-optimization.
That's sophisticated brand building under constraints.
Hims & Hers Digital Strategy: MACE Framework Breakdown
I analyzed Hims & Hers through the MACE framework—a model that examines how to build brands that last through customer value (Mastery), reducing friction (Accessibility), maintaining relevance (Cadence), and creating stickiness (Ensnarement).
Mastery: Building Fan Base Through Value Exchange
Hims & Hers nails the value proposition:
Free consultations: You provide health data, they provide personalized recommendations
Educational content: Destigmatizes hair loss, sexual health, and mental wellness
Community building: Testimonials and before/after transformations create social proof
The required "sacrifice"? Users must discuss stigmatized health issues and upload photos for dermatology consults. But that vulnerability becomes the product's strength—once you've shared that much, you're invested.
Accessibility: Reducing Friction
This is where DTC healthcare shines:
Entry pricing: $12-49/month subscriptions (GLP-1s around $149/month)
Distribution: No doctor visit required, no pharmacy trip, no awkward conversations
Target demo: Millennials and Gen Z (20-40) who expect healthcare to work like everything else they buy online
Payment options: Insurance coverage, FSA/HSA accepted
The insight: They've removed every traditional healthcare friction point. No waiting rooms. No judgment. No insurance phone trees. Just a clean digital experience that feels more like Warby Parker than CVS.
Cadence: Staying Relevant
Cadence measures how brands stay fresh through new product launches and consistent content creation. It's about maintaining momentum—giving customers reasons to pay attention beyond their initial purchase.
Hims & Hers excels at product velocity but struggles with content consistency. I break this down below:
Where Cadence Gets Interesting:
Product cadence is relentless:
Since 2023, they've launched volumizing shampoos, anti-dandruff treatments, Hard Mints (chewable ED medication—genius product innovation), cardiovascular health support, MedMatch diagnostic services, and a holistic weight loss program. In 2024, they offered $99/month GLP-1s to military, veterans, teachers, nurses, and first responders, partnered with Hartford HealthCare for in-person care, and expanded nutrition support for weight loss.
By 2025, they'd added labs, menopause/perimenopause products, oral testosterone, and bundles. They expanded internationally to Canada and the UK. In 2026, they launched compounded semaglutide pills and early cancer detection tests.
That's an aggressive product expansion strategy that signals one thing: they're building a comprehensive health platform, not just a pharmacy alternative.
But the content cadence reveals the cracks:
Both Hims and Hers show the same patterns:
Instagram & Facebook: FB: @wearehers and @wearehims IG: @hers and @hims are posting every 2-14 days with the same content duplicated across both platforms
X/Twitter: @wearehers and @wearehims have seldom, monthly posts and retweets(minimal presence)
Blog: Hims and Hers blogs have lots of articles, but no discernible publishing rhythm or content strategy
For a brand selling GLP-1s, hair transformation, and skincare—all perfect TikTok content—abandoning the platform where their target demo lives is leaving acquisition and engagement on the table.
Equally, given the male-dominated spaces of X, you'd think they'd have a better strategy to show up there. Maybe even leading with "Hims" and letting Hers take a less prominent role on that platform.
Ensnarement: Creating Switching Costs
This is where they've built real stickiness:
Subscription auto-refills: Convenience lock-in
Personalized formulations: Compounded treatments at custom dosages mean you can't easily replicate your formula elsewhere—your exact prescription might not exist as a standard elsewhere
Product breadth: Consolidate multiple health needs under one provider
Built-in sharing: By normalizing stigmatized topics plus referral codes, they make it easy to recommend without embarrassment
What's missing? Daily engagement touchpoints—at least on social.
They may have habit-building and tracking features in their app, but if you're not already a customer, you're not seeing that. On social, where acquisition happens, there's no daily reason to pay attention.
We gotta give it to them, though—according to Google Ads Transparency Center, Hims & Hers has 12 creatives in market right now, and Meta Ads Library shows around 350 ads running. But organic and owned should complement their paid efforts, not replace them.
The insight:
They're launching products at breakneck speed but letting their content engine idle. That's a mismatch. When you're adding new categories monthly, you need content infrastructure that can educate, onboard, and engage customers around those products. Right now, they're expecting product announcements to do the heavy lifting that consistent content should be doing.
They've nailed monthly subscription revenue, but they haven't captured daily attention. In a world where Noom, Peloton, and other wellness brands succeed through constant digital engagement, that's a retention gap. Hims & Hers sells health optimization, but they're not showing up daily in the spaces where their customers already are.
The Strategic Opportunity
Hims & Hers' digital strategy is clear: Own the category of digital-first preventive healthcare for millennials/Gen Z by being the brand that destigmatized it first and scaled fastest.
They execute through:
Heavy top-of-funnel content (blog posts, social ads, Meta/Google presence)
Multi-platform presence targeting different demographics via His/Hers segmentation
Problem-solution messaging that normalizes stigmatized health topics
But as they expand globally and add categories, there's a fundamental challenge: maintaining consistent digital engagement across platforms.
Engagement means UGC and organic relevant content. An ad itself won't give you the relevance you need to keep your audience engaged long-term.
Product velocity is outpacing content velocity. That creates a strategic vulnerability.
Here's what I'd recommend to their digital team:
Establish Unified Content Calendar
Make blog content the anchor for all channels. Right now, content feels scattered—posts published with no clear rhythm, abandoned TikTok, minimal X presence, and duplicated content across Instagram and Facebook.
Create a publishing cadence where long-form blog content serves as the foundation, then break it down into snackable pieces for social and email. This ensures consistency without reinventing the strategy for each platform.
Why it matters: When you're launching products as fast as Hims & Hers, content becomes your education engine. Without it, customers don't know what's new, why it matters, or how to use it.
Revive TikTok With UGC Campaign
Launch a campaign incentivizing customers to share their health journeys. This becomes both social proof and a destigmatization tool—letting customers normalize the conversation organically rather than relying only on branded content.
Transformation content (GLP-1 progress, hair regrowth, skincare results) is native to TikTok. The platform's been dormant since May 2025.
The opportunity cost: Every week without TikTok presence is a week competitors can own transformation storytelling in this space.
Build In-App Community (Reddit-Style)
Create a members-only forum within the Hims platform, organized around "showing up for your health so you can show up in life."
Structure it with topic-based spaces (hair health, sexual wellness, weight management) plus prompts and challenges that encourage ongoing engagement between prescription refills.
Why this addresses the Ensnarement gap: Right now they rely on subscription auto-refill, but they lack the daily touchpoints that competitors like Noom leverage for retention. A community creates reasons to open the app beyond "time to refill.
Bonus: If We're Thinking Integratively
Here's an idea that came up during my research but fell outside the scope of pure digital marketing strategy: a digital wellness rewards ecosystem.
Think credit card rewards, but for health behaviors.
Partner with complementary digital-first brands—ClassPass, Headspace, meal delivery services—where new users from partner platforms get incentives to try Hims & Hers, and Hims customers unlock perks at partner platforms. Engagement with partner platforms could earn credits toward Hims products.
This would require engineering and partnerships teams to build the infrastructure, with digital marketing promoting the launches and keeping the rewards engine top-of-mind. It's a bigger lift than pure content strategy, but it matches the scale of their ambition.
This would position Hims not as a transactional pharmacy alternative, but as a digital health companion that makes showing up in life easier.
Why This Works:
When you're launching products as fast as Hims & Hers, content becomes your education engine. Without it, customers don't know what's new, why it matters, or how to use it.
Every week without a TikTok presence is a week competitors can own transformation storytelling in this space. Ro, Nurx, and other telehealth brands are actively creating content. Silence cedes territory.
Right now, Hims & Hers relies on subscription auto-refill, but they lack the daily touchpoints that platforms like Noom leverage for retention. A community creates reasons to open the app beyond "time to refill."
From an integrated marketing perspective:
Building a partnership network creates switching costs beyond subscription (lose all partner perks if you leave)
The platform becomes more valuable as you integrate more health behaviors, building network effects:
Non-monetary incentives for healthy actions (work out on ClassPass, earn $5 Hims credit), enabling mastery.
It is a natural sharing mechanism—"I get ClassPass discounts through Hims."
And activates another customer acquisition channel.
The infrastructure investment they're making (labs, compounding facilities, international expansion, in-person care partnerships) shows they want to be a comprehensive health partner. This digital strategy would match that ambition.
The Bottom Line
In 45 minutes of research, I found a brand that's doing sophisticated work: they've destigmatized healthcare, built authentic credibility, and created meaningful switching costs.
But the brand that normalized telehealth now needs to make it sticky—not just through monthly refills, but through daily reasons to stay engaged.
The infrastructure is there. The brand equity is there. The customer trust is there.
Now they need the content strategy to match.
This analysis used the MACE framework developed by Scott Galloway to examine how brands create customer value (Mastery), reduce barriers (Accessibility), maintain relevance (Cadence), and build retention (Ensnarement).
Where Theory Becomes Practice
Want to see how I’m applying what I learn in this and other classes to projects and client work? Explore my portfolio (including the Hims & Hers Case study) to go behind the scenes of the strategies I talk about here.
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