SICKDOGWOLFMAN is challenging how the skincare and SPF categories target men with the launch of the agency’s sunscreen brand, SLATHER.
Jess Wheeler, creative director at SICKDOGWOLFMAN, told Mediaweek: “We saw a hole in the market. A failure in communication.”
“We’ve worked in the skincare/SPF category before, so were aware of the statistics – which are terrible. We’re no.1 in the world for skin cancer. Yet not no.1 in the world for sunscreen use. And it’s mostly men who are getting it.”
He said that, for the most part, the message of skincare and SPF brands is either “cold and rational or overtly sun-loving in its expression, and often with a feminine lean.”
“SPF sunscreen marketing has traditionally grasped at very low-hanging fruit. Bikinis by the beach. Families by the pool. Summer holidays. But that’s not really the truth is it?
“The sun doesn’t just magically appear when you’re on vacation. The sun is there when you’re working outside building a shed. It’s there when you’re having a 3-hour surf. It’s there when the coach has stuck you at deep fine leg for an entire innings. It’s there when you’re doing spin kicks in the mosh pit at a day-long festival.”
He noted SLATHER speaks to the truth that the sun is ever-present in Australia, “as much as we love the sun, it doesn’t necessarily love us back in the same way.”
The brand spot was made in collaboration with the production company Haven’t You Done Well, which was founded by the comedy group Aunty Donna.
The campaign builds on the brand’s anti-category positioning – ‘The sun is not your friend’, by playfully presenting ‘the sun’ as a character that doesn’t always have the best intentions when it comes to people’s skin.
Despite Australia being a giant desert island located under a depleted ozone layer with some of the highest UV radiation levels on the planet, studies show that fewer than 3 in 10 Australians use sunscreen regularly. Dropping to 1 in 5 when it comes to men. Which has led to men making up the majority of that no.1 skin cancer ranking.
Wheeler said: “To get people, guys especially, who are apathetic to sunscreen to start using it – it had to be a good product. It’s a high protection broad spectrum SPF50+, but it’s also a daily hydrating moisturiser, and it goes on smooth.
“A lot of high protection SPF feels like house paint. This feels like a moisturiser,” he added of the product.
SLATHER has begun tapping into this market via two in-house animations. The campaign will continue its push to engage this demographic on the importance of looking after yourself in the sun and Australia at large.
Wheeler noted that SICKDOGWOLFMAN launching its own SPF provided them with an opportunity to have creative freedom whilst learning what it was like to be the client.
The spot was created with Haven’t You Done Well’s director duo, Will & Sej, and Production Alley’s Rodney Lowe for sound.
Agency: SICKDOGWOLFMAN
Production: Haven’t You Done Well
Directors: Will & Sej
Producer: Tessa Mansfield-Hung
Producer: Lauren Nichols
Executive Producer: Georgia Mappin
Executive Producer: Tom Rickard
Production Manager/Post Producer: Louise Todd-Smith
2nd AC / Production Assistant: Lucy Bain
DOP: Marcus Cropp
1st AC: Harry Huggins
Gaffer: Corey Clement
Best Boy: Luca Muscato
Sound Recordist: Brendan Muller
Production Designer: Joe Patten
Production Assistant: Max Krywulak
Wardrobe: Brynne Lowen
SFX Makeup: Tania de Ross
Editor: Will & Sej
VFX: Josh Regoli
Colourist: Daniel Witt (Moodlab)
Sound: Rodney Lowe (Production Alley)