Battle of the Brands: Headspace vs Calm

If there’s one thing the pandemic has changed for us – it’s the focus on mental health. There is a revolution of sorts – something that was so taboo has now become widely spoken about and people are much more open to it. So we thought, why not look at two of the leading apps that are keeping people sane in these absolutely surreal times.

 

Talkwalker, a social media analytics company, based in Luxembourg, provides information on the using their platform. Talkwalker Analytics analyses the performance of mentions all over the internet and provides key metrics such as engagement, related themes, demographic data, geographic data and influencer data. 

 

 

 

Both apps are going head to head here but Headspace has a slight edge over calm. For Calm, the recent peak comes from their many celebrity collaborations. They recently worked on a series in collaboration with HBO featuring the likes of Priyanka Chopra and Kate Winslet. 

 

For Headspace, the rise in mentions comes from the new features like “Focus Mode” or “Move” and of course the rise in mental health awareness and how it’s relevant now especially during the pandemic.

 

 

 

It’s a bit of a surprise but the demographic profiles of both apps are very, very similar. Mental health and discussions about it seem very popular with men and millennials. For headspace, the younger generation seem to be more engaged and for Calm, the older demographic seems to be more engaged. Additionally, there is roughly a percentage difference between women when it comes to headspace and calm.

 

 

 

Celebrities have been heavily advocating for mental health. So, we decided to take a look at the celebrities associated with both apps. As we can see, a vast majority of celebrities are associated with Calm – mostly due to their series. We have Lady Gaga, Keanu Reeves, Lucy Liu etc. For headspace we can see John Legend, Mitchell Marsh and so on.

 

 

 

It’s all about spreading the message about mental health awareness today and the best way to do that is with the help of images and photos. We can see that Calm is doing more on this front when it comes to photos and Headspace for videos. When it comes to Indoor vs outdoor split – Headspace has more content indoors vs calm has more content outdoors.