Hawaiian Tropic is doubling down on entertainment-driven sun care marketing with a new summer campaign designed to turn SPF application into a social-first ritual. Building on the viral momentum of its 2025 “Tana Sutra” campaign, the Edgewell Personal Care-owned brand has launched a dance-centric creative platform anchored by a music video featuring influencer and media personality Alix Earle, who returns for her second consecutive year as a brand partner.
"Our continued partnership with Alix Earle reflects a broader shift in how brands are thinking about the role of creators," Shaylin Winterer, senior brand manager at Hawaiian Tropic, tells Global Cosmetic Industry. "We see the industry evolving beyond one-off campaigns focused primarily on reach and impressions, towards partnerships that are built around long-term brand affinity and cultural relevance. The creators who are most valuable to brands today aren’t just media channels; they’re helping to bring the brand’s identity to life in culture in a way that feels resonant and relatable to consumers."
Winterer adds, "From the beginning, Alix was such a natural partner, not only because she genuinely loves and uses Hawaiian Tropic, but also because she authentically embodies the heart of the brand. She’s confident, relatable, and always glowing. Working with her last year was such a collaborative process and our Tana Sutra campaign was incredibly successful. As we thought about talent for our campaign this year, her affinity for the brand combined with her connection to dance and recent success on Dancing with the Stars made the partnership feel even more organic."
Finally, she says, "I think this evolution also highlights a more mature view of influencer marketing. More than ever before, we are looking to creators as collaborative partners and brand ambassadors with built-in communities, versus short-term reach drivers tied to a single campaign KPI."
Set to the Divinyls’ 1990 hit “I Touch Myself,” the campaign reframes sunscreen application as an expressive, sensual experience rather than a functional skin care step. For beauty marketers, the strategy reflects a broader industry shift toward emotional participation and behavior-led engagement, particularly in categories where consumer compliance remains inconsistent. Rather than emphasizing dermatologist messaging or efficacy claims, Hawaiian Tropic is leaning into choreography, nostalgia, creator culture and body confidence to increase cultural relevance around SPF use.
The campaign arrives at a time when sunscreen brands are increasingly competing on sensory identity and lifestyle positioning as much as UV protection. Hawaiian Tropic’s long-standing equity in fragrance, glow and escapism gives the brand a differentiated platform within the highly clinical sun care space, and executives appear intent on maximizing that distinction. Veronique Mura, General Manager and Senior Vice President of Body & Skin at Edgewell Personal Care, said the goal was to transform sunscreen application from a “chore” into something entertaining and emotionally resonant through the universal language of dance.
The campaign’s production strategy also signals how beauty brands are increasingly approaching launches with entertainment-industry scale. Directed by Aerin Moreno and choreographed by Grammy Award-winning choreographer Robbie Blue, the creative includes a full-length music video, dance tutorial content and high-volume social amplification intended to fuel repeat participation across TikTok and Instagram. The choreography itself was intentionally designed to mimic SPF application movements, effectively turning product usage into creator-friendly content.
From a media standpoint, Hawaiian Tropic is significantly expanding its visibility playbook. The brand has secured its first-ever partnership as the official sun care sponsor of Sports Illustrated Swimsuit 2026, integrating into launch-week activations, Swim Week runway programming and influencer-led content extensions. The partnership positions the brand directly inside one of summer’s most visible lifestyle media ecosystems, offering sustained exposure across fashion, beauty and social entertainment audiences.
"Consumers today don’t experience brands in a linear way," says Winterer. "They move seamlessly between social platforms, live events, retail, streaming content, all while engaging in the cultural conversation. Because of that, I think that the most effective campaigns are the ones that feel immersive and interconnected across channels rather than confined to a single platform."
She adds, "We designed our campaign with participation in mind and set out to create something that our consumers could engage with, recreate, and make their own. Dance naturally lends itself to social platforms because it invites interaction, remixing, and community participation in a way that feels very organic to how culture moves today. For us, it was important for us to build a true multi-platform ecosystem around the campaign where content, creators, partnerships, and commerce all work together to reinforce the brand in a cohesive, engaging, and culturally connected way."
For product developers and brand strategists, the campaign also underscores the growing importance of sensorial formulation in marketing execution. Hawaiian Tropic repeatedly references texture, skin feel and fragrance as core drivers of emotional engagement, reinforcing how tactile and experiential product attributes are becoming increasingly central to campaign storytelling. In a crowded SPF market where efficacy is often table stakes, brands are increasingly using sensoriality, creator alignment and culturally participatory formats to build distinction and consumer loyalty.
The campaign launches with a full-length music video rollout supported by paid social, influencer seeding, digital amplification and a dedicated media partnership with Sports Illustrated Swimsuit, positioning Hawaiian Tropic to compete aggressively for share of conversation during the peak summer selling season.
