For Sun Bum, marketing is a vibe

The chill vibe of the summer is around all year for Sun Bum, the sun-care brand recognizable for its yellow and wood-grain color palette and signature scent that the company keeps top secret (although it may or may not bring on a craving for banana Laffy Taffy).

Though Sun Bum’s peak season is May through July, according to VP of Marketing Russell Radebaugh, the brand keeps up its marketing yearround. Radebaugh declined to share specific spend figures, but said Sun Bum tries to be “consistent” with its marketing, even during the dreary winter months.

“We think of Sun Bum as a lifestyle, and our social and our storytelling is an extension of us,” he told Marketing Brew. “You can’t just go dark for six months of the year and come back up and expect people to be engaged.”

If Sun Bum is a lifestyle, then it’s a laid-back one, with the top of its “About” page declaring “work less live more.” That energy seems to translate into the brand’s approach to marketing, which includes a mix of campaigns and channels, and a lot of trust when it comes to measurement, Radebaugh said.

Lather up

Most people break out the sunscreen during the summer months. Still, the sun comes out yearround, and Sun Bum takes advantage of that—for instance, it partners with ski resorts to display products like face sticks and lip balms, Radebaugh said.

The brand is focused on driving awareness all year, he said, but the peak spring and summer months are “a little bit more geared to bringing new people in” with activations like its retail displays, which started in local surf shops and now appear in major retailers.

The company also puts marketing efforts behind raising awareness for skin cancer: It runs a nonprofit, and once put banana suits on statues in all 50 states to make the point that, unlike bananas, people are not naturally covered in a protective layer.

May—the start of Sun Bum’s busy season—is also Skin Cancer Awareness Month, so during that time, the brand focuses less on “pushing our product” and more on education, Radebaugh said.

This May, Sun Bum created guides for sun protection and skin cancer screening, sponsored the Skin Cancer Foundation’s mobile skin cancer screening program, hosted its own “block party” in California, and created content with Lindsey Zubritsky, a dermatologist who has 1 million followers on TikTok.

That work “then leads into summer campaigns that are maybe a little more product or brand-focused,” Radebaugh said, like this year’s campaign promoting Sun Bum’s new line of kids’ products. It included an experiential component in the form of an art contest, as well as digital, print, and out-of-home ads that show kids playing on the beach, according to Radebaugh.

It’s meant to raise awareness for the new product, especially in target markets like the Sunbelt, he said, but the creative purposefully doesn’t feature much product imagery.

“We have an amazing kids’ product…but we didn’t want to just lean on that,” Radebaugh said. “What we wanted to bring to life was why we love the kids in our communities…What we wanted to drive through is the emotional connection, and then also be able to talk about the product where it’s appropriate.”

ROI for SPF

While Sun Bum’s Instagram features some product shots, it’s also a mix of dogs, memes, and food pics. “We don’t care if you use ours just use sunscreen,” its Instagram bio reads.

“What I get excited about is our storytelling and our ability to engage our consumers,” Radebaugh said. “Our social channels are the opportunity where we can tell those stories and have fun. We are less concerned about maintaining brand rank and paid search. It is really about fun content, positivity, optimism…and the engagement has followed along with that.”

Even outside of social, Radebaugh said the Sun Bum team isn’t so focused on metrics like lifetime value, customer acquisition cost, “or any of these acronyms” often associated with performance marketing. As long as sales growth continues and customer feedback stays positive, “we’re going to continue to lean into spending the way that we want to spend,” he said.

That approach requires a “fair amount of trust,” from the C-suite, Radebaugh said. “I won’t say we don’t look at anything, but it is really [about] feeling and sentiment,” he said. “Or maybe it’s a vibe. That’d be really on brand.”