Australians love the “Ugly Xmas Sweater” tradition of the northern hemisphere, but it’s way too hot to wear them during an Australian summer. So we created and launched our own newsworthy Australian version – the sun and swim-proof Ugly Xmas Rashie, rated UPF 50+ to protect against the Aussie summer sun. Sold exclusively online at the premium price of $69.95AUD, with all profits going directly to CCQ. The high-quality Ugly Xmas Rashie was designed to appeal to the unique Australian sense of humour and celebrate our beach lifestyle; create behaviour change and a new annual income stream for Cancer Council.

The Ugly Xmas Rashie was conceived in September 2015.

We partnered with Gold Coast-based manufacturer of performance swimwear, Kozii to produce a limited edition run of 3,000 to be ready for launch early November with delivery for Christmas 2015.

All PR material (footage, interviews etc) was created to be downloadable from the Ugly Xmas Rashie website by the national media launch date, November 9.

The success of the Ugly Xmas Rashie product launch sees full scale production planning now underway for the 2016 design, with a target of 50,000 to be sold globally and available for pre-order from July 2016.

The Limited Edition run of 3,000 Ugly Xmas Rashies sold out in 2 days, generating $210,000 in sales, with all profits going direct to CCQ.

PayPal momentarily suspended the shopping basket, citing an investigation into “unprecedented traffic” to the website.

The launch generated in excess of $2m earned media and was covered by every national news service, and international news and blogs, including Mashable, Pedestrian TV, UK Daily Mail, Mamamia etc.

Desirability increased as delighted customers posted their #uglysmasrashie pics.

On Instagram and Twitter alone, social reach was almost 13 million, with 14 million impressions.

EDMs to the newly created Ugly Xmas Rashie database achieved open rates of 70% (average is 12%) and click rates of 5.3% (average is 1.9%)

The final release of 150 rashies sold out in 8 minutes.

Sun safety became a uniquely Australian fashion statement, creating behaviour change and a new annual revenue stream for CCQ.