Twenty-year-old sun-care brand Coola is preparing for a brand refresh, just in time for a sun-soaked summer.
Starting in late April, Coola will roll out new packaging, new product photography and a new campaign, plus a website relaunch. A new tagline, “SPF perfected,” is meant to highlight the efficacy and innovation of Coola products. Later in the year, the brand will also add a content hub to its website focused on behind-the-scenes stories. It will then remove secondary packaging on select products to boost its sustainability efforts and reduce waste.
Coola was created after founder Chris Birchby moved to Venice, Calif. and was exposed to the organic movement. With both of his parents receiving melanoma cancer diagnoses, he began to reevaluate his lifestyle habits, including his sun exposure. This background and Coola’s ongoing ties to clean and organic beauty formulas will form the basis of the content hub.
Coola was first distributed in spas before expanding to retailers like Sephora and Ulta Beauty. Christina Peng, CMO of Coola, declined to share overall sales figures but said the brand’s sales grew double digits in 2023. SC Johnson made a majority stake investment in Coola in 2019; though terms of the deal were not disclosed, Coola was doing around $30 million in sales at that time, per industry reports.
“It was time to modernize the brand and talk more about what’s behind Coola,” said Peng. “There’s a lot of competition now, and that makes it all the more important for us to find a way to break through to current consumers on what makes us unique.”
In 2020, the global value of sun-care products was $10.7 billion, and the category is projected to grow by 4% each year until 2028, according to market analysts at Grand View Research. Behind that growth is a slate of buzzy newer sun-care brands, like Supergoop and Vacation, as well as better product iterations from heritage brands including Shiseido, Neutrogena and La Roche Posay, and the general advocacy of these brands in promoting sun protection and SPF’s anti-aging properties.
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Eric Gangnath, senior art director at Coola, was tasked with the packaging refresh. Gangnath said the packaging was reformatted to focus on the blue coloring typical of Coola’s packaging but with the addition of flourishes, like ombre color schemes decorating the bottom of cans. The original flower details on Coola cans have been removed. Additionally, a sans serif font was switched to a serif font to evoke sophistication, and the finishes on bottles and cans were changed from glossy to matte. The hope is that, as a result, customers will see Coola as an innovative and fun brand, he said.
“Brands that prioritize innovation and formulation can come off a little stuffy, at times,” he said. “We wanted to show that we’re a lifestyle brand, but our innovation is what drives us.”
Coola plans to email its customers after the website relaunch, informing them of the new site and overall refresh. An influencer campaign comprised of paid influencers and influencers within the Ulta Beauty Collective will kick off in May. It will focus on general sun safety and will highlight Coola’s hero products in their new packaging. The influencers were chosen to appeal to Coola’s core, 25-45-year-old customer base.
“[Our core customers] are getting a little bit older. We’re holding on to them but also making sure we appeal to a new generation of Gen Z,” said Peng.
