How This After Sun Brand Turned Humans into Sunburnt Billboards

Following recent heat waves in Brazil, pharmaceutical company EMS teamed up with creative agency We to promote its Caladryl sun cream product in an innovative way. Using makeup, the team painted the bodies of actors to appear as if they had been burnt by the sun, with brand messages and the logo standing out as white marks - as if they had been written in sun cream. These actors then walked around in three popular - and sunny - locations in São Paulo, becoming what We has called ‘OOHuman’ adverts.

To discuss how this timely twist on traditional OOH advertising came to be, LBB’s Ben Conway spoke with some of the creative team at We: chief creative officer, Armando Araújo, creative director and copywriter, Otávio Mastrogiuseppe, and creative/art director, Paulo Almeida.

LBB> How did this campaign come about - when and why did you start working on a campaign around the recent heat waves in Brazil? 

We> It was an opportunity that presented itself to us, as Brazil experienced an unusual heat wave in the last few weeks. For seven days straight we had thermometers reaching temperatures of around 40º celsius. And the thermal sensation reached 60º celsius on the worst days. All of this made people go to beaches and pools with more frequency. 

Caladryl, our after sun cream brand, has always been linked to those topics. With more than 40 years of history, it is the most famous after sun in the country. So, we thought: with people visiting beaches more often, it's more likely that they’ll burn their skin. Consequently, we will have more and more people who will need to use Caladryl. That's when we saw the opportunity to use sunburn marks as advertising, something that had never been done before in the category.

LBB> What inspired the idea of ​​using people as your ‘OOHumans’? 

We> It's not news to anyone that, after being exposed to the sun for a long time and getting burned, you need to use an after sun cream to take care of your skin. In other words, the message is too obvious. Therefore, we had to innovate the format to be relevant and catch people’s attention. 

That's when we thought of a fun and unusual way to do this: what if instead of creating a traditional OOH ad, we created one that happens on people's bodies? An OOH capable of using skin as a means to our message, transforming people's bodies into a new media format. This would certainly draw attention and make everyone think about the consequences of excessive exposure to the sun. 

So we took a shot and made it happen. Guess what? During the heatwave, people started to see others burning (because of the sun), using their bodies to advertise our product to everyone else.

LBB> How did you cast these OOHumans? 

We> The process was no different than the one we use for film casting, for example. We hired actors and actresses who had different bodies and skin colours - after all, Caladryl works for all types of skin and sunburn intensity. From there, we just had to define the locations where we would have the actors passing by.

LBB> Can you explain the process of creating the messages and getting them to appear on the OOHumans? 

We> We had some discussions about the best way to do this, from body painting to artificial tanning, until we realised that makeup that resembled sunburn could convey the message well. Therefore, we hired a professional makeup artist who applied makeup to the bodies of the actors and actresses and ensured that the messages were visible on the skin. The messages were made from a sticker printed in the format of the sentences and the Caladryl packaging. 

Our biggest concern was that we needed to have a considerable contrast between the message and the ‘burn’ on the skin, so that it would be visible even from a distance. That was only possible thanks to the makeup artists who spent more than four hours working on everything.

What they had to communicate was very simple because the idea is very visual, meaning it's easy to understand. So, all we had to do was talk about the sun cream and treat OOHumans as real examples of what can happen to you if you have excessive exposure to the sun. And mainly, if you don't use Caladryl. 

We believe that there's nothing better than a good example of ‘what not to do’ to teach people how to do things the right way. 

LBB> Where did the guerilla events with the actors take place?

We> The Caladryl brand positioning is to be an after sun product. This means that it’s suitable for any type of sunburn, whether on the beach, in the park, in the city, or elsewhere. So we picked three main locations for the guerilla [work] to take place: a park in the capital of São Paulo, a beach on the coast of the city, and the largest avenue in the city, known as Avenida Paulista, which is in the centre of São Paulo. 

The reason why everything happened in São Paulo was due to timing: we were short on time, and because it was one of those opportunity ideas, we had to move fast and make everything happen within 24 hours. And we did it.

LBB> How did passers-by react to your OOHumans? And what was your biggest lesson from the experience?

We>The reactions were really fun and unexpected. Some people asked if it was a commercial, and others praised the idea saying things like, ‘Now I'm aware of what to do next time I get a sunburn’. But the funniest reaction of all was an old lady who criticised the actors for not using sun cream. She was kidding, of course, but she acted so well that at first sight, we were all surprised. The important part is that everything was captured and, soon, we will make a case study of the entire process.

As for the biggest lesson, we would probably say that the power of creativity still rules. By that, we mean that even a simple idea, executed in practically one day, can be relevant and create a positive impact on a brand, such as what happened with Caladryl. Creativity is the best way to remind people about a brand or a communication positioning. That was our intention since the beginning of the OOHumans project and, fortunately, we did it.