HAWAIIAN TROPIC - FEEL THE SUN

Hawaiian Tropic was born in Daytona Beach Florida in the swinging sixties. The brand image was inextricably linked with Floridian spring beach vibes, deep tans and oil rather than suncream.

But by the 2020’s attitudes to sun-bathing and fears about the impact of over-exposure to UV had changed. Low-factor sun protection and tanning became frowned upon, SPF 50 encouraged even for every day trips to the shops, and many skincare products incorporated sun protection. Despite adding a full range of sun factor protection levels including factor 50, Hawaiian Tropic was seen by some as belonging to a former time.

The brand needed a way to evolve its sun-loving heritage while being seen to have moved with the times. Hawaiian Tropic has a unique celebratory vibe in a sea of sun cream lookalikes and safety and protection messaging. Pull were confident we could modernise the feel of the brand while making a virtue of its heritage and distinct proposition.

Every summer, tens of millions of Northern Europeans leave cooler climates in search of sunshine.

Brits, Scandinavians, Dutch and Germans. Where do they go for their summer holidays? The Med. Spain alone accommodates 18-20m Brits every summer. That’s nearly 30% of the entire population, and has been stable for decades. So despite the doom-mongering about terrifying climate-change and ‘heat-related deaths’ that the Guardian and BBC subject us to every year (former Scottish first minister Nicola Sturgeon once described the forecast of a 2 degree C. rise in average temperatures in Scotland as ‘catastrophic’), Northern Europeans don’t just love the summer sun, they crave it.

You would think from the fretting in the press about the dangers of heat that we would all be thinking: stay at home, as far north as possible, keep out of the sun and cover yourself day in and day out in waxy SPF 50.

Well no, actually. As we have seen, that’s not how a very large proportion of the population behave.

Yes, SP factors have become an arms race in skincare. But hasn’t it become an unwinnable war? They’ve got to 50 and can’t go any further (until of course someone does. . ?)

• UK SPF 50 sun care sales grew 25.5% year-on-year in 2025
• SPF 50 face creams grew 32.2% in 2025
   

Why segmentation can be real and can matter

I’m not going to be a heretic here and promote the kind of unscientific or elaborate consumer segmentation that would make Byon Sharp pull his hair out. Yes, your product needs ‘sophisticated mass marketing’,and as a big a pool of buyers as possible, but looking at who is likely to buy your product (and who isn’t) still has its place.

What we discovered with our client was that there was a significant proportion of young (18-25) females who just loved being in the sun. For them, Hawaiian Tropic represented a sensuous form of skincare which both accentuated and evoked the pleasure of the sun on their skin. Hawaiian Tropic has a very evocative coconut-flavoured scent (the brand is sold under license both as a candle and a fragrance).

Skincare sells the vibe – the emotion - first and the rational benefits second. We learnt from our work with TROPIC skincare (not to be confused with Hawaiian Tropic) that there is a group of skincare users for whom the feel, scent and freshness of the product amounts to a luxury experience. Not everyone wants this in their skincare. But again, a significant proportion do.

So despite the doomsday warnings connected to sun exposure, there is a group of people who trust their instincts and love the sun. They are the ones who sit in the sun the first time that they can in the spring and say: “Feel the sun” and bask in it. For them (and probably the majority of us in Northern Europe in reality) they associate the warmth of the sun with:

• Exiting a plane at a warm destination
• The smell and sounds of the beach
• Feeling the heat of the sun knowing you can leap into a nearby pool
• The smell of warm places – spice, coconuts or pine trees
• Enjoying food and drinks sitting outside well into the evening

If summer was a brand – it would have immensely powerful memory structures and distinct assets.

And by association, so did Hawaiian Tropic. It sold the promise of summer.

We knew that Hawaiian Tropic had to emphasise protection in a way it hadn’t needed to in the past (although check the seventies ad above - it was there then). But its emotional territory - summer bliss - needed to be brought to the front.

Brand Manifesto

So our brand strategists worked with Hawaiian Tropic to develop a Manifesto for the brand. This wasn’t published as copy, but used to sum up a mood to guide creative:

“Your perfect partner to embark on sun-kissed adventures.

Hawaiian Tropic is for those who celebrate the power of the sun to bring

warmth, happiness, and beauty. It is the very spirit of summer bliss.

Liberating all to live their own life confidently whenever the sun shines.

Feel good from the inside out.”

Photoshoot

This became the basis for our creative brief. Pull created new brand assets for the 2025 season, not so much as a relaunch as a re-frame. The basis for these was a photoshoot with the client in Ibiza. The first and probably most important modernisation move was model casting.

While the same number of people have been going from northern climes to the Med each summer for years, they don’t all look like slender white-skinned Scandinavians in search of a tan. So a much more diverse set of model shapes and skin types was selected than had previously been used, making the brand feel more accessible and give it wider appeal.

A problem for the brand had also been the ‘Hawaiian’ part. As we have seen from Hawaiian Tropic’s origin story, the brand doesn’t actually have any Hawaiian provenance, this had even made people question the use of the brand name. We said: “Keep it”. I’s a key part of the brand’s personality, but don’t major on Hawaii. If you go too far it will begin to feel inauthentic. Previous endeavours by the brand in this direction had backfired. For Pull, the ‘Hawaiian’ bit was reminiscent of the use of the accoutrements of high New England society inherent in Ralph Lauren. As I explained here – they were completely made up. But the brand never made any serious claims about them. They were always just a prop that created a vibe.

So our creative team took the iconic hibiscus flower (a symbol of Hawaii) and put it to use. It became both an invaluable mask for framing creative content and an emblem used to demote that critical SPF level of the product.

Then three background shades were created to denote the three core lines designed for protection , hydration and after-sun care.

Finally, we created assets for point of sale, the website and ecommerce use, and social. Once all these assets were created, a comprehensive toolkit was collated with strategic advice on how to deploy the assets. The last piece of the puzzle was a social media playbook, complete with strategies for each of the key social channels, how-to’s and examples.

It looks as though the sea of sameness and convergence around protection and safety might now be working against all those brands that went with safety and protection first. Is the tide turning? Hawaiian Tropic is gaining share in Europe. We are very proud that we played a part in helping a brand bravely and uniquely, and most importantly distinctly defend ownable territory: Summer, enjoyment and escape - you have to love it.

Posted 21 July 2026