The leading regional tanning company was looking to elevate their brand with a more fashion-forward campaign that highlighted the benefits of both sunless and UV tanning. We needed to boost awareness and drive promotional traffic despite a tight media and production budget.
While we weren’t trying to convince non-tanners to tan, we knew the target audience believed they looked their best with a tan. That, in turn, provided certain emotional and mental benefits as well. We needed a strategy that would deliver on those secondary benefits in a way that was aspirational, but attainable.
Our LOOMIS team felt that if we could connect the brand to the emotional aspects of tanning, it would set Sun Tan City apart from their competition. Highlighting the confidence that a tan provides, we needed to convince tanners that a gorgeous tan from Sun Tan City gave them an inner glow that made any situation better.
For years, the brand was represented by a customer avatar named “Vicki” who was a stylized, simple illustration. We wanted to bring Vicki to life in all her glamour and style. The Inner Glow campaign put Vicki in different situations where feeling her most confidence would have a positive effect – running into an old boyfriend, giving a business presentation, or going out with the girls.
Video was the workhorse, running on connected TV, YouTube, and social channels. Presented in both :30 and :15 format, the spots delivered both awareness building brand messaging with specific promotional information to drive traffic. Reduced formats allowed us to further extend the campaign to Snapchat and other short-form video, which ultimately delivered the best ROI.
Selling the benefits of a beautiful tan on the radio might have been tricky, but because our message centered around the confident inner glow a Sun Tan City tan delivered, we were able to create an audial take on our situational concept. We created an audio environment where Vicki and her friends could chat about moments when their gorgeous tans made a difference. Our music division, Luminous Sound, created original music for the brand. With their decades of experience in creating sonic branding, Luminous delivered not only an energetic and engaging theme track but an ear-catching sing-out of the tagline “Let Yourself Shine.”
Sun Tan City’s corporate stores reported a sales lift of 19% during their primary promotional period. Overall sales were up 14% YoY. The campaign was so successful, the client requested we continue the campaign into the next year of production, with a new series of creative.
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