Don't go changin (unless your customers know!)

As summer is approaching I start to search for my favorite sunscreen Hawaiian Tropic. It has been a staple in my summer brand loyal product line hanging tightly with Lancome Star Bronzer and Aveda Tinted Moisturizer with sunscreen. I use the Hawaiian Tropic 30 sunscreen and I swear by it as a redhead as the only screen that allows me to spend a day in the sun without regret and still gives me a little color. I have been very brand loyal for a person that is a product-hopping-junkie.

But as I started to look for my favorite sunscreen (white bottle with the blue letters and cap) at Walgreens and Target I came up with nothing. I looked in April and May and came up lotion-less and by the time the beginning of June rolled around I thought maybe the brand had gone out of business. Hawaiian Tropic? Could it be? I know some products are having a difficult time these days but sunscreen is a hot commodity.

On my next trip to Target I thought I am going to get this figured out. I am not going to burn this summer nor succumb to shade. There must be an answer. I am a marketer that is all about solutions. And as I ran the shelves with a birds eye view there it was... a redesign. It had never occurred to me. This product has been the same since I was a kid. (Hawaiian Tropic is best remembered as the brown bottle of tanning lotion my mom and sister used on their tan bodies while I tested the latest burning, itching and useless sunblocks one after the other, burn after burn.)

This redesign is not just a color change but even the bottle is completely different. And with a quick scan of the eye a complete glance over. I love the new look (once I found it!) but why didn't I see any marketing for this new product? I reached out to Hawaiian Tropic via facebook and asked why they didn't do a campaign. I thought if I didn't find it maybe someone else couldn't either. Their response was pleasant and helpful but it only led me in the direction of posted images on their fan page and a sales site through Playtex.com -- still how would I know? I wasn't satisfied with the response. And it made me think about how if a brand such as Hawaiian Tropic has trouble launching their brand what hope does White Space Agency have? What hope do any of us have?

So what is the best way to be marketing your brand? Even with an almost 10,000 fan page base and growing on facebook (a small number compared to customer base and target market) Hawaiian Tropic is what appears to be only using a social media platform to market this new self-proclaimed luxury line. In addition, it does appear that they have also been event marketing in the warmer regions (good luck Midwesterners) and after I did find the product noticed a coupon in the Sunday Chicago Tribune. But if I didn't know they changed their look I still may not have noticed. With endless opportunities for PR and Marketing a business needs to address the question, how do you know you are reaching your potential market? Is a social media plan enough although very cost effective? Event marketing can been very productive but hardly scratch the surface of your target market not to mention being very costly. What is the right equation? And are the results being measured in a way that will be utilized to churn out further marketing efforts? These are all questions we need to evaluate to determine, how do you get the best bang at a time when the buck is not making nearly enough noise?