Supergoop wants to expand its target demographic beyond “mindful millennials,” to get more people to buy and wear its sunscreen. To do so, the company is expanding its advertising mix with more traditional mediums like out-of-home and print as well as expanding its social advertising to platforms like Snapchat and Twitch, a first for the brand.
“We’re looking at broadening our audience base,” said Britany LeBlanc, svp of marketing, adding that the company recently introduced a new sunscreen product so boosting brand awareness now is key. “It’s the kind of moment for us to go broader with our media strategy.”
Showing up in more traditional mediums as well as on platforms like Twitch and Snapchat will allow the brand to reach new audiences as well as boost brand awareness. Much of Supergoop’s advertising focus was on platforms like Facebook, Instagram and, more recently, TikTok where the “mindful millennial” spends their time, explained LeBlanc.
Many brands that previously focused their advertising on Facebook and Instagram have sought to diversify their advertising mix by adding more traditional channels in recent years. Doing so has come as a result of privacy regulations and crowded social ad channels, making diversification necessary, as previously reported by Digiday. That being said, LeBlanc pointed to the need to reach new audiences over diversification for the strategy shift.
It’s unclear how much Supergoop was spending on those channels or how the company allocates its ad budget as LeBlanc declined to share those figures or percentages. Per Kantar, Supergoop spent $329,745 on media in 2021, up from $66,191 in 2020. Those figures exclude what Supergoop spent on social media advertising as Kantar doesn’t track social spending.
While adding out-of-home and print to the mix with a full-page ad in the New York Times will reach a broad, diverse audience, adding platforms like Twitch to the mix allows Supergoop to target men in a way the brand hadn’t previously. “We know that Twitch’s audience base has a larger penetration of men than some of the other channels that we’ve been advertising in,” said LeBlanc.
It’s necessary for a brand to expand its advertising footprint beyond its main channels to reach new audiences, explained brand consultant and co-founder of Metaforce Allen Adamson. “To broaden your reach you have to broaden your media channels,” said Adamson. “If you want to build reach over frequency you have to have more channels to do that. The most effective way to build reach is to expand [your advertising channels].”
The company’s in-house marketing team is behind the advertising shift as well as its new creative campaign. With its new campaign, the company will highlight people who prioritize sunscreen as part of their daily routine to potentially inspire others to do so.
“We’re trying to offer ways for different people who might not have thought, ‘I am concerned with my overall health but I’m not necessarily wearing sunscreen every day’ to hear someone’s personal story,” said LeBlanc. “Then maybe they have that takeaway that they too could be wearing SPF every day as part of their health and wellness routine.”