With the official start of summer just around the corner, it seems like the importance of wearing sunscreen is being mentioned more and more. We previously talked about the new June bracelet that measures your sun exposure a few months ago, but now Neutrogena is introducing a “new” product, or as some have pointed out, a product they’ve been selling for years but with a new name – Cloudscreen, complete with a picture of a cloud on the bottle. Steve Hall of Ad Rants claims that this is just the “repackaging of sunscreen for idiots”, but I think it’s actually an ingenious marketing idea. Everyone knows that clouds don’t block UV rays, but most won’t bother to put on sunscreen, let alone even on sunny days. I learned my lesson this past week…I went to the beach on a partly cloudy day, didn’t put on any sunscreen and ended up with the worst sunburn I’ve ever had.
So why do we ignore these warnings? Do we really need a literal symbol on a bottle of sunscreen to convince us that we need to put it on every day, including the cloudy ones? Clearly, we do.
Being the visually-driven consumer that I am, I know that seeing a bottle of Cloudscreen would definitely pique my interest. The cloud acts as a great visual reminder that yes, sunscreen is necessary even on those cloudy beach days, especially for those like me who have a bad habit of forgetting to put it on.
Last year, we conducted a global Healthy Skin Exploratory in which we found that US and UK respondents seemingly understood the importance of protecting their skin from the sun, but many also stated that they had age spots which are blemishes on parts of the body that are commonly exposed to the sun. This goes to show that even though we know that the sun’s rays are harmful, we may not be fully aware of how much damage they are capable of on a day-to-day basis. We have a long way to go before regular sun protection becomes a daily habit for the majority of the population, but hopefully more products like the June bracelet and Neutrogena’s Cloudscreen will help us get there.
