This Coppertone sunscreen commercial is so simply and yet very powerful. The first thing that impressed me about this commercial was the fact that the company was attempting to expand the target market. Instead of simply relating sunscreen to the beach, Coppertone is trying to expand the association to relate to outside sports, most notably skateboarding. This strategy is bold because sunscreen isn’t really seen as a cool product. As a result, likening the product to the cool skaters can complete miss the mark with the target audience, whose realities might not resonate with the reality portrayed in the commercial. Nonetheless, I believe that the company managed to create cool characters, shown through the tattoos and the skateboarding tricks, who also have a soft side, shown through the playful relationship. In my opinion, this shows that the commercial isn’t part of some fantasy world and is in fact sensitive to the target market and can be part of reality.
The other feature of the commercial that I thought was fascinating was the fact that, in the fifteen seconds, the tagline Coppertone – Proven to Protect is said twice: once at the very beginning and once at the end. This is very intentional as it sandwiches the information that the marketer wants the viewer to take away between the two tagline instances. This signals that the information between the two taglines is descriptive of the Coppertone product. The way that it is said, with the pause between the brand name and the slogan, also serves as a very clean trigger. The next time that the viewer hears the name Coppertone, they will likely have to resist the urge to respond with “proven to protect.” Therefore, this tagline is intended to give the product the positive attributes of protection and invincibility, attributes that a skater would want.
Do you think that the tagline is innovative or naive? Why or why not?