EltaMD Kicks Off Skin Cancer Awareness Month With New Product, Campaign
EltaMD is going big on skin cancer awareness month.
The sun care brand, which had one of skin care’s best-selling units in prestige beauty last year with UV Clear Broad-Spectrum SPF 46, is kicking off the sun season with a new launch and a new campaign starring Bravo’s Andy Cohen in the buff.
More from WWD
The brand unveiled the AOX Mist on May 1, on the first day of skin cancer awareness month. It is a mineral sunscreen and retails for $45. According to the brand, it was the biggest launch on EltaMD’s website — where it retails currently — in the brand’s history, and was the second top-seller behind its hero UV Clear range.
“We knew we had a void in body sprays, and we worked hard to get this back in time for the body season — there is seasonality particularly with body,” said Joanna Zucker, chief executive officer of CP Skin Health. “We do see a huge spike in body sunscreen or larger sizes, as well as water-resistant sunscreens from April to August.”
Industry sources expect the product’s sales to hit between $8 million and $10 million in its first year on the market. Zucker didn’t comment on the estimates, but did say she expected “it will propel us to be really high up in the body care category as well.”
The formula also includes vitamins C and E, housed in a bag-in-valve technology as an alternative to aerosols. The launch coincides with its new campaign, fronted by Cohen, a skin cancer survivor. For every tag in the comments on Cohen’s post, the brand will donate one bottle of sunscreen to the Melanoma Research Foundation, an effort that coincides with Zucker’s own battle with melanoma.
“My melanoma was not caused by the last 10 to 15 years, it was caused by what I did between the ages of 15 and 25, like when I thought it was smart to go to a tanning salon,” Zucker said. “As a mother and as a chief executive officer of a sun care brand, I would say we have to get awareness among the younger generation who wants to be tan and look good. We owe it, as the industry leader, to be doing that.”
Educational campaigns like the one with Cohen are key. “An astonishing percentage of Americans still don’t incorporate sunscreen as part of their daily care,” said Dr. Cynthia Price, the dermatologist who treated Zucker. “As a result, more people are diagnosed with skin cancer each year in the U.S. than all other cancers combined, and two people die of the disease every hour.”
Zucker admits she was one of those people. “I didn’t wear sunscreen before the age of 35 on my face every day and the damage was done,” she said. “I’m grateful I was in the hands of fantastic doctors and now hopefully I can spread the word that it can happen to anyone.”
Best of WWD
