Hawaiian Tropic and Alix Earle Makes a Summer Dance Routine With SPF

Hawaiian Tropic wants sunscreen application to feel like a dance-filled beach party.

Together with BBH USA, the Edgewell Personal Care-owned brand has launched a new summer campaign starring influencer and Dancing with the Stars breakout Alix Earle.

The entire creative platform builds around a dance-inspired SPF application and follows last year’s viral "Tana Sutra" campaign, also lead by Earle. 

This time around, the brand is harnessing playful sensuality through a choreographed music-video experience set to Divinyls’ 1990 hit "I Touch Myself."

The goal of the campaign is for consumers to view sunscreen as both a clinical skincare step and a confidence ritual tied to movement, music, and self-expression. 

"This campaign combines everything I love — dance, confidence, and not taking yourself too seriously," said Earle.

"Hawaiian Tropic turned SPF into a whole vibe, and getting to bring that to life through movement was such a dream."

The initiative is also a sign of how heavily beauty and personal care brands now rely on creator familiarity to create seasonal marketing franchises.

Earle's return gives the campaign continuity, bouncing off the success of their first brand partnership. 

"Hawaiian Tropic is all about helping you feel like your sexiest self before, during, and after your time in the sun," said Veronique Mura, General Manager and Senior VP of Body & Skin at Edgewell Personal Care.

"Application is usually considered a chore in an already clinical category, so we knew we could bring something fresh, fun, and wholly Hawaiian Tropic to the table."

Dancing Under the Sun with Earle

Directed by Aerin Moreno in Los Angeles, the spot features Earle performing a choreographed sunscreen application routine on an idyllic beach backdrop.

Grammy Award-winning choreographer Robbie Blue developed the moves alongside assistant choreographer Lucas Debiasi, creating a routine that's part dance content, part SPF tutorial.

Apart from the hero film, Hawaiian Tropic is backing the launch with social takeovers, paid digital placements, tutorial content, and a major partnership with Sports Illustrated Swimsuit.

The brand has officially signed on as the publication’s first-ever official suncare partner for the 2026 Swimsuit Issue.

This partnership includes launch-week activations, integration into the annual Sports Illustrated Swimsuit runway show during Swim Week, and collaborations with select creators throughout the summer.

"This year's campaign is the perfect reminder that applying sunscreen can feel just as good as the glow that follows," said Alanna Watson, Group Creative Director at BBH USA.

Overall, the brand's summer strategy is to build an ongoing visibility engine that doesn't rely on single viral moments. 

And it achieves that by making catchy, memorable content out of sunscreen application that users can recreate across social media platforms.

Hawaiian Tropic’s Dance-Led SPF Push

For beauty marketers, Hawaiian Tropic shows how routine application of products can become entertainment properties:

• Habit-based products stick when brands make repeatable behaviors out of routines.
  Once a routine becomes something people can perform and share, it starts functioning as content.
• Creator partnerships are most effective when brands sustain relationships. 
  As a matter of fact, marketers see higher returns from influencer marketing compared to traditional digital ads, generating 11x higher ROI than banner ads.
• Making a campaign multi-layered extends its lifespan.
  When content is spread across tutorials, influencers, and social activations, it keeps reappearing instead of fading after release.

The bigger question now is whether Hawaiian Tropic can sustain this summer-event brand positioning beyond seasonal campaigns.

According to Edgewell Personal Care’s 2025 annual report, the company generated approximately $2.22 billion in net revenue across its portfolio of personal care brands last year. 

Our Take: Can SPF Become Entertainment?

Hawaiian Tropic built a campaign around desire, movement, vanity, music, and attention, all facets of how people actually behave during summer.

Nobody posts beach photos thinking about UV protection first.

They think about looking good, feeling attractive, and participating in whatever everyone else online seems to be doing that week.

This is what makes the choreography, the nostalgic soundtrack, the Sports Illustrated tie-in, and even the tutorial rollout work together like parts of the same summer universe. 

It's this very consistency that gives the campaign its staying power.

If Hawaiian Tropic can keep evolving this world without losing the playful confidence that makes it work, it may have found a repeatable seasonal formula that other beauty brands can only attempt to replicate.

In other news, M&S recently built an entire fashion campaign around compliment-driven social interactions starring Amelia Dimoldenberg.

Personality-led storytelling continues to outperform purely product-driven campaigns on social platforms.

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