Hey Marketing Bestie,

Us marketers sure can learn a lot from our Marketing fore-fathers and fore-mothers. 

The greatest marketing campaigns in history deserve to be etched in HTML stone. 

Welcome to Marketing Classics 411, a new kind of ancient history. 

In place of hieroglyphs, expect to decipher the campaigns of yesteryear. 

Professor Millennial teaches every Tuesday (remotely), via electronic mail. 

Class is now in session.

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🌴🎄 BEFORE WE TALK TANNING...don't miss this roasting.

My brilliant wife is hosting a live ad strategy workshop next Tuesday, and she's coming for your ad account. With love, LOL.

You'll learn whether you're blaming the creative when you should be blaming the data behind it, and how to catch tracking gaps before Black Friday/Cyber Monday make it them really expensive.

Andrew (Meta Media Buying at Thrive Causemetics) + Chintan (CPO & data king at Elevar/Audiense) will be there with real stories.

Bring your ads & your performance creative questions.

Register for Ari's Ad Creative Workshop

SPF 101

How Coppertone Invented (And Reinvented) The Suncare Industry

Suncare is a $16B industry, projected to reach $25B in the next decade.

You might expect Asia to lead sales, but the biggest markets are North America and Europe.

Both places with an on-again, off-again relationship with the sun.

For centuries, humans protected their skin from the sun to conform to upper-class beauty ideals.

Until having a tan became a status symbol in white and Western societies.

The pendulum swung back, as science learned more about skin health and the harmful effects of UV radiation.

Now, tan-maxxers are ditching sunscreen yet again.

Through sun up and down, 1 brand with a world-recognized logo stayed slathered on top.

It invented the category, then strategically repositioned and reapplied it as the science and culture changed.

Grab your hat, and don’t forget the back of your neck.

This is the story of… Coppertone.

Throughout history, pale skin was associated with class.

Ancient Egyptians wore plant pastes to shield skin from the sun and treat sunburns. In ancient Rome and Greece, fair skin was the beauty ideal for women. (Men aimed for a natural tan and sculpture-worthy muscles from outdoor exercise.)

Around the world, fair skin was associated with time indoors, which was associated with wealth, which was associated with beauty.

Even Queen Elizabeth I was self-conscious about her skin.

She used Venetian ceruse, a toxic mix of lead and vinegar, to achieve her famous complexion.

“GRWM to literally poison my face.”

But all of this started changing in the 1920s.

In 1923, Coco Chanel was photographed with bronzed skin after vacationing in the French Riviera. Chanel hadn’t labored in the sun. She’d been relaxing on beaches and the deck of a yacht.

In 1927, Vogue featured a suntanned model on its cover.

That same year, French fashion designer Jean Patou sold the 1st scented tanning oil.

It was the flapper era, when women rebelled against Victorian norms by:

👩‍🦰: Bobbing their hair
👗: Wearing shorter skirts and dresses
🫦: Putting blush on their scandalously exposed knees

In 1929, Coco Chanel told Vogue, “A golden tan is the index of chic.”

Paper-white skin was OUT. For the pale set, “sunkissed skin” now signified having time and money for leisure and travel.

The sunburn became the suntan.

LOTION IN MOTION

Of course, not all sun exposure happens on vacation.

During World War II, a pharmacist named Benjamin Green developed Red Vet Pet, a petroleum-based sunscreen, for soldiers in the Pacific.

Super casual.

Green later added cocoa butter and coconut oil to the formula and launched Coppertone as a commercial product in 1944.

But it wasn’t Marketed as sunscreen.

Elder Millennials might remember the first name: Coppertone called itself “suntan lotion” - specifically for getting a darker tan, faster.

The company was based in Miami, so you’d think their branding might include a beach or swimming pool scene. Nope. Coppertone’s original logo was a Native American chief accompanied by the slogan “Don’t be a paleface.” 😬

Meanwhile in Europe, a Swiss chemist named Franz Greiter created the 1st modern sunscreen after getting a gnarly burn skiing in the Alps.

Gletscher Crème (Glacier Cream) was formulated to physically block UV rays. Today, its SPF would be around…2.

In 1946, the sunscreen was sold as Piz Buin, named after the mountain where Greiter got sunburnt. The brand still exists today.

TAN, DON’T BURN

Coppertone had work to do. In 1953, they hired Tally Embry Advertising to replace that controversial logo and slogan.

Enter Little Miss Coppertone and the new slogan: “Tan, don’t burn.”

In 1959, a 3-story mechanical billboard of the Coppertone Girl appeared on Biscayne Boulevard.

That’s a pre-AI em-dash. Leave it alone!

Billboards were erected nationwide the following year.

By then, Coppertone had been acquired by Schering-Plough (which later merged with Merck), making them the world’s largest suntan brand.

The adorable logo of the little girl on the beach appealed to sun-loving families, and the slogan finally mentioned sunburns.

But it was still a tanning product, 1st and foremost.

The brand pumped out a variety of lotions and creams targeted at women:

Coppertone Quick Tan was an early self-tanner that turned consumers orange without sun exposure.

Coppertone Tanning Butter kept crispy sunburnt skin soft and glistening.

Extra crispy

But science soon cast a shadow over the suntan industry.

In the 1970s, a growing body of research linked UV radiation to skin cancer and premature aging. Add that to the ozone depletion fears, and scientists worried sun exposure was only going to get more dangerous. Not chic!

The FDA began regulating sunscreen in 1978 and adopted Europe’s Sun Protection Factor (SPF) system to measure UVB protection. (SPF was actually invented by that same Alps-skiing chemist, but the date’s a little hazy.)

Coppertone had built its entire brand on tanning, which science and reputable health guidance now discouraged.

The culture was changing. But the sun wasn’t setting on Coppertone.

A SAFER PLACE IN THE SUN

Tanning didn’t stop overnight.

The same year SPF entered suncare, the 1st commercial tanning beds opened in the U.S.

Coppertone competitor Bain de Soleil heavily marketed European-style oils and gels “for a St. Tropez tan” throughout the 1980s.

Ooh, a double SUNtendre!

Serious sun-seekers slathered their skin in a mixture of Johnson’s Baby Oil and iodine and laid out with sun reflectors and tanning blankets.

Just add sunlight for that perfect rotisserie look

In 1985, rising melanoma rates inspired the American Academy of Dermatology to introduce free skin cancer screenings nationwide.

Suncare had flown too close to the sun. Brands could go against the tide and continue to focus on tanning, or they could evolve.

Coppertone picked door #2: be part of the solution. And it didn’t have to sunset its most recognizable brand asset to do it. It just needed a healthy refresh.

They developed higher SPF formulas and rebranded as sun protection.

In July 1994, Little Miss Coppertone was temporarily updated with a hat, shirt, sunglasses, and sunscreen for a sun safety campaign.

The Coppertone Girl, 1953 vs. 1994. Even the dog’s less tan!

The National Weather Service and Environment Protection Agency introduced daily solar hazard reporting a month earlier.

Today Coppertone sells everyday sun protection and sweat- and water-resistant performance, with a focus on children’s suncare.

The Coppertone Girl now wears a sundress that covers her back and chest. (The dog’s better behaved, too.)

No tanlines here.

Suncare marketing evolved from a seasonal product to a critical part of daily skincare routines.

Coppertone remains a top-selling suncare brand, but Neutrogena is now America’s mass-market leader.

“Masstige” skincare-focused brands like EltaMD and Supergoop are increasingly popular and recommended by dermatologists and skinfluencers alike.

Meanwhile, trendy newcomers like Vacation, differentiate themselves with retro packaging, nostalgic scents, and novel formats.

It’s almost like everything comes back around… 🌅

PUT IT IN PRACTICE

Times change, and brands must adapt to survive. If you need a repositioning playbook, follow Coppertone’s formula:

Here’s your homework:

1️⃣. Name the claim your core product’s built on, then compare it to where the science/industry/culture is heading.
Anything that feels dated now will probably be 10x worse 10 years from now.

2️⃣. Find the asset worth keeping and what has to change.
Coppertone kept the little girl on the bottle, but changed what she was selling and wearing. Then it doubled-down on sun protection.

3️⃣. Make the pivot visible with 1 concrete symbol.
Actions > words. Instead of a press release, a hat, shirt, sunglasses, and sunscreen were temporarily added to the Coppertone girl to show that sun protection was the brand’s priority.

4️⃣. Now, re-sell the same customer with new positioning.
Coppertone pivoted to sun protection - without calling itself OR the customer out for all those years of tanning.

TANMAXXING

After all the progress the suncare industry made, tanning’s back.

According to the American Academy of Dermatology, 67% of Americans reported tanning in 2024. (In 2020, that number was 54%.) Cases of melanoma are up even more.

There’s even a tanmaxxing trend going viral.

So, is the culture changing again? Is there another suncare repositioning on the horizon?

Time will tell whether they’ll follow the 1994 urgency strategy, or whether they’ll create a new playbook - 1 that lets consumers have their suntan and stay safe, too.

Vacation recently launched an Orange Gelée Sunscreen Gel that looks and smells like the discontinued Bain de Soleil tanning oil. This time with SPF 30.

Sun-stalgia activated. Again.

MARKETING CHEAT SHEET (WHAT TO LEARN FROM THIS STORY):

1️⃣. Culture sets the meaning. Brands rent it.
Having a tan went from working-class to chic to hazardous. Coppertone and other suncare industry leaders had to carefully ride each turn.

2️⃣. A brand icon can outlive a message.
Coppertone kept the logo of the little girl on the beach, but changed what she sold (and wore).

3️⃣. Repositioning beats defending a dying claim.
The suncare brands that survived the science-led turn against tanning changed what they sold, instead of arguing with the data.

4️⃣. Prevention sells better with a near-term hook.
Invisible or future benefits need a visible payoff ASAP. The savviest players in the suncare industry repositioned sunscreen as a daily skincare essential.

IN A MEME

Ahh, the bell has rung. Please be sure to do the reading (follow The Marketing Millennials on LinkedIn and me, Professor Millennial, on X - and don't forget to register for that ad strategy workshop!)

Off you go, passing period is only 11 minutes and there’s already a line at the vending machine that sells mini tubes of sunscreen.

Until next time,
Professor Millennial