The Cancer Council of Australia required an idea to change Australians’ behaviour towards sun protection. With a limited budget they needed the idea to generate publicity that would help increase awareness of the issue. Traditional media wasn’t working, so we changed the use of pre-existing speaker systems at beaches, schools, sportsgrounds, parks and pools to instead play a sound, known as the Sun Sound, that’s a friendly reminder for people to protect themselves from the sun.

The Sun Sound launched at national surf events held at major Australian beaches. It was played on existing PA systems.

Supporting outdoor media, online advertising and radio interviews with Sun Sound composer, Ben Lee (an award winning musician), drove people to The Cancer Council website where the Sun Sound can be easily downloaded and played on existing infrastructure.

Due to its success, the initiative has now spread to schools, sports grounds, parks, pools and festivals across Australia with more and more venues planning to implement the idea on a permanent basis.

The Sun Sound launch was leading news on every major network, radio station and newspaper. This led to 27,000 unique Google searches for ‘Sun Sound’ that day.The Sun Sound was also covered on international news in 13 different countries.The launch alone generated over $3,000,000 in free media exposure for Skin Cancer.

In a study done of 2,000 respondents that heard the Sun Sound, 96% of them said it was a helpful reminder to protect themselves from the sun.

A further survey of 7,000 secondary school students indicated a 40% change in attitude towards tanning from the previous survey.All this with only a $20k budget.