On April 8th 2011, after much lobbying from cancer charities, the UK Government passed a new bill – the Sunbed Regulation Act. The act regulates the use of tanning devices, the ultraviolet radiation (UVA) levels permitted, and the amount of time people are allowed to spend on sunbeds.

13 years later, 100 people die each year due to sunbed use and 46 new cases of melanoma are diagnosed each day.

That’s because today’s world looks very different –social media, influencers and reality TV stars have more sway than ever before. Whether it’s Kim Kardashian posting about her sunbed, or the 718m TikTok views of #sunbed content, people continue to use sunbeds, melanoma skin cancer cases are increasing, and the regulation is clearly unfit for purpose.

SkinCancerUK asked for an idea to raise awareness of the danger of sunbeds, highlight the deficiencies in the regulation and, ultimately, stop people dying unnecessarily.

Sunbeds can emit up to 15x more UVA than the sun, which led The World Health Organisation to declare them as dangerous as smoking and place their use into the highest risk level for cancer alongside cigarettes, alcohol, and asbestos. All of these products feature clear warnings advising consumers of the risk–mandated by law. There is no such mandate in the Sunbed Regulation Act.

We decided to use the anniversary of the Sunbed Regulation Act to launch a call to action–calling on the UK Government to update it and make warnings mandatory in tanning salons.

Because if you go into a tanning salon, stay under a sunbed for the time allowed, your skin will be irreparably damaged. It will blister. It will burn. It will blacken.

So we did the same to the law.

We printed out the law, put the paper in a sunbed, and watched it burn.

Our strategy needed to do show why change was needed, and why it was needed now.

The burned law demonstrated the danger of sunbeds and why the law needed to change. It was also a great visual asset for media.

Releasing it on the law’s anniversary gave immediacy and relevance. But we needed to contextualise the story further to reach the most vulnerable –under 35s. Use a sunbed before 35 and your risk of getting skin cancer increases by almost 60%.

We needed assets, insights and data which showed why under 35s were using sunbeds –so looked at TikTok trending data, Google sunbed searches, influencers advocating for sunbed use – and built them into our media strategy.

We built a roster of spokespeople who would appeal to different media segments, including skin cancer patients, influencers who’d been directly affected by skin cancer–and created a website to turn conversation into action.

We placed printed copies of the law on a sunbed and left them for the amount of time people spend on them each year. As the law was exposed, it began burning, taking on characteristics of melanoma such as raised spots with differing colour edges.

Cover pages were designed to explain what had happened to the pages and burnt alongside the law. Exposed laws were then sent to politicians, journalists and influencers to highlight the flaws in current legislation.

The process was filmed and used to raise broader awareness and direct people to a website which educated people on the risks of sunbeds, asking them to write to MPs demanding change in legislation. Each element of the was designed to encapsulate the dangers of sunbeds. The black set design and website allowed the glow of UV lights as well as the burnt laws to stand out and create maximum impact.

Launched 14 years to the day that the Sunbed Regulation Act was introduced, 8th April. The campaign was picked up by 226 press outlets, reaching 353 million people. Our message resonated. After the campaign launched there was an increase of 8,100% searches for ‘sunbeds skin cancer’ as well as a 185% increase of searches for ‘melanoma’.

Influencers helped spread the word, with 193,376 views of organic content creating active over 13,000 engagements with the campaign.

MPs began engaging with the campaign, and within 2 weeks of launch, it was introduced to the Houses of Parliament Health Select Committee for consideration.

The campaign was supported by 16 charities, organizations and companies from around the globe, helping to amplify the message.