“The thing I hate most about advertising is that it attracts all the bright, creative and ambitious young people, leaving us mainly with the slow and self-obsessed to become artists” - Banksy

The advertising industry cops a lot of criticism for churning out crap, but if there is one agency doing it differently, it’s SICKDOGWOLFMAN. Beautifully illustrated by the launch of their own consumer goods brand, SLATHER.

SLATHER is the ultimate counterpoint to Banksy’s quote. It’s an example what happens when bright, creative, ambitious young people who work in advertising show us that they actually are artists.

This is the last edition of supergoods for the year and I think it’s the best one yet. It’s a breakdown of how two agency dudes and their crew are putting their money where their mouth is. I’m calling it…

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The world’s most talked about sunscreen brand

I sat down with two of the founders of SLATHER, Jess Wheeler and James Orr (who also run creative agency SICKDOGWOLFMAN) to chat about their ambition to set the sunscreen world on fire.

The plan to launch of SLATHER didn’t come from deep market analysis of future category growth and a comprehensive business plan. It started with simply a great idea and an obvious gap in the market.

Almost 70% of Aussies will be diagnosed with skin cancer at some point in their life, yet less than 30% actually use sunscreen regularly, with men being the worst offenders.

James shared “we didn’t map it out and say the brand needs a particular tone, a mascot, a jarring colour palette. We just saw a hole in the market - what aren’t people saying, why aren’t people apathetic to the sun - we saw those holes and started filling them with the right answer.”  

The brand plays on the core idea that the sun is not your friend and uses humour, wit and a sharp personality to ground that truth in reality.

There’s no KPI’s or quarterly targets

When I asked the guys what their goal was - did they wanna run it forever or sell it Unilever in 5 years, they laughed.

Jess reiterated: “Let’s make it the sickest sunscreen brand in the world.” He went on to talk about the creative pursuit and the battle between commercial creativity and artistic expression.

This point hit home to me. What they’re doing with SLATHER is showing us that business can be a creative pursuit. That art can exist with commercial outcomes. Now the guys aren’t doing this purely for fun, the business clearly needs to stand on its own to feet, but the way they’re doing it is different.

James jumped in:

After years of building other people’s brands and constantly selling off their IP for a pat on the back and an Adnews article, the guys are stepping up to the plate and doing it for themselves, exactly how they want to.

Fear and uncertainty still exists

James shared the learning curve of doing it for themselves: “It’s easy to say ‘you’ve gotta be brave’ when it’s not your money. Now we’re saying it to ourselves - are we really gonna do this, are we really gonna have the brand get out there and say these things, what if people don’t like. To preach it is one thing, but to do it yourself is a different level”.

Jess quickly jumped in: “There are risks involved in taking big swings. But the greatest risk is being bland and boring”.

One of the ‘risky’ moves they made was creating their own animated content series. James taught himself to animate and Jess voiced all the characters. The guys sit around the office writing then go and make them. The videos are exactly what you would expect for a brand that condemns the sun, pretty off-the-wall but hilarious.

The moments between the moments

What makes this brand different is the commitment. Great creative is not just consistent, but constant.

It’s a bit cliche to say ‘brand every touchpoint’, because yeah no shit. But what I love about Slather is the voice carries into non-obvious spaces - like FAQ’s and fine print.

Copywriting so good it’s illegal

James shared their early experiences of dealing with legal for copywriting on packaging.

“We got a call from the lawyer - they said ‘this is the best copy we’ve read but you can’t use any of it’. The original tagline was SLATHER OR DIE. You can’t say SLATHER OR DIE on sunscreen. We had to tone down the aggression of the brand”

An inherent restlessness

We chatted about the idea of never being content with your work.

Jess quipped: “It leads to better work, you never feel content so you make something better. But then you never feel content”

I think that’s an exciting signal for SLATHER. If you chuck a bunch of creatives in the room and give them full control, what will be the outcome? What we’re seeing now is just a glimpse of what’s to come for the brand. If the team continue to channel their energy into making bigger and better stuff, I think this is going to make an impact. Maybe they’ll buy Unilever.

Go and buy SLATHER

Grab yourself a sick hat, slaps some stickers all over your local stop sign and support the crew on their journey to becoming the next big thing by buying some sunscreen.

That’s it for the year.

I’m gonna take a little break and hit the new year with bigger and better content.

All I can say to you is thank you for reading my stuff, I’m constantly blown away by the feedback and I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I do writing it.