AUNZ Work of the Week: SLATHER and SICKDOGWOLFMAN

SICKDOGWOLFMAN has launched a sunscreen brand, SLATHER, to disrupt the category, including its marketing tropes. Instead of selling SPF using beautiful women on a beautiful beach, SDWM is using animated tradies, sporting mullets and drinking Monster, and a positioning - ‘The Sun is Not Your Friend’ - that spotlights the sun as a villain. 

In the TikTok launch film, a humanised sun disturbingly licks a tradie until he’s totally sunburnt. The animation is slightly crude, as is the language. It ends with a jingle made by Production Alley.

SDWM’s creative director Jess Wheeler told LBB, “There’s a tension there, given it’s such a serious issue, but that’s also how Australians tend to deal with this kind of thing. By having a laugh and then getting down to business.”

The campaign is coupled with OOH posters splashed with the positioning line, while the packaging features a bold font and bold colours: yellow and black. SDWM said the approach brings a “degree of sensible aesthetic edge to a category devoid of real feeling and meaning.”

Jess’ issue with the category is that, despite other disruptors like Ultra Violette and Vacation entering the market, it still largely advertisers to “women in bikinis” and families.

“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 three hour surf.

“The fact that sunscreen brands have positioned sunscreen as something that mostly women in bikinis by the pool and families at the beach use - when it’s primarily men spending extended periods of time outside and subsequently contracting skin cancer - is a glaring communication issue.”

Everything about this launch is uniquely Australian, from the name to the humour to the category itself. We’re hoping it does exactly what Jess and the team are aiming for, and becomes the “most talked about sunscreen brand in the world.”