Yahoo Lifestyle Stix Rebrands as Winx Health, Kerry Washington Joins as Investor and Adviser
After five years in the game, Stix will now be known as Winx Health.
On Tuesday, the reproductive and vaginal health company is introducing its new name, look and adviser Kerry Washington.
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Winx Health launched in 2019 with a pregnancy test and a strong mission of how women should be marketed to, especially when it comes to reproductive and sexual health tools.
“We wanted to create a pregnancy test that was branded and designed for people who didn’t necessarily want to get pregnant, so no babies on the boxes,” said Stix cofounder Jamie Norwood. “We very quickly learned that the market was so much bigger than that and women’s health is much, much more than getting pregnant or not getting pregnant.”
From there, the brand began expanding, launching UTI testing, a morning-after pill, supplements and an extensive educational platform called Real Talk that has more than 500 articles.
“I like to describe it as the Gen Z WebMD,” Norwood said of the platform.
This range that the brand now offers is what ultimately led to the rebrand, according to Norwood.
“The name Stix came from the line on the pregnancy tests,” she said. “We’ve felt for the last few years like our name didn’t really represent the full spectrum of women’s health and all of our offerings. We decided to take the plunge and change our name to Winx Health, [which] is a nod or a wink to let people know that we’re in their corner and that women’s health is a full spectrum of experiences.”
The process started eight months ago and included creating a new look and all new assets. While the brand still features vibrant colors, it’s undergone a design refresh.
“It will look more like an evolution than like a completely new brand,” Norwood said.
In addition to the rebrand, Winx Health has brought on Washington as an investor and health adviser. The team did not disclose the details of Washington’s investment.
“We got connected with Kerry about a year ago. She had heard of Stix, now Winx Health, through one of our investors,” Norwood said.
After having conversations, it was a clear fit.
“Kerry has spent a lot of her career advocating for sex ed and reproductive justice,” Norwood said, emphasizing the importance of this especially in an election year two years after the overturning of Roe v. Wade. “She’s going to be doing a lot of advocacy work, especially this summer going into the fall with the election all around reproductive justice and letting people know that women’s rights and women’s health is very much on the ballot.”
Advocacy is a core tenet for the brand, most notably seen through its Restart Donation Bank, which allows anyone to either donate $20 or redeem for free a dose of the morning-after pill. To date, the brand has donated 30,000 doses. In addition to this, the brand will be doubling down on get-out-the-vote efforts and campaigns this year surrounding the election.
“I’m thrilled to be working so closely with Winx Health. The brand has worked diligently to uphold women’s rights to choice and privacy when it comes to their health,” Washington shared in an email. “I’m proud to be an investor in this game-changing company that has helped hundreds of thousands of young women access the health care they want and need — especially now, when action is so urgently needed.”
In addition, the brand is launching its UTI test-and-treat and vaginal health test-and-treat packages.
“You pee on it like you would a pregnancy test, and then we have a QR code,” Norwood said. “You can scan your test result and then it will tell you if you have a UTI or not. If you do, it’ll connect you with the doctor via SMS and you can get your prescription in hours.”
Although the brand has treatment products and supplements, the main focus going forward will continue to be on testing, per Norwood.
“People are so confused about what’s going on with their bodies,” she said, emphasizing customer confusion when it comes to the difference between a UTI or yeast infection. “We want at-home diagnostics to be as accessible and as easy to understand and simple as possible. Staying in the diagnostic space is really important to us….That said, any products that people with vaginas need that are currently confusing, difficult to understand, hard to access, we want to make better so we’ll definitely stay in vaginal, reproductive and sexual health.”
With this in mind, the brand is also focused on Gen Z customers at the moment, though Norwood sees potential in the menopause category.
While the company declined to share specific sales figures, Norwood reported that the brand, which is available on on-demand retailers like GoPuff and DoorDash as well as a regional grocer in Pennsylvania, reached profitability this year. With that, the goal is to continue to expand its footprint.
“We want to be everywhere that our customers are so we would love to launch in retail everywhere,” Norwood said.
