Recent weather conditions in the UK have been pretty perfect for drumming up business in the salons. An early-ish start to summer saw people dashing to get ahead of the game on the tanning front, chanting the mantra “we dare to bare” (without burning, of course!) as they booked their courses, laid back and thought of summer!
Of course, with our opponents recognising the desire to tan at this time of year, their anti-tanning campaigns are often strategically developed to target this peak usage time.
But as is often the case for UK residents, this early enthusiasm and dreams of a long sunny summer were quashed almost as soon as they set in, with torrential rain and winds rapidly replacing the summer sun. Literally, as quickly as summer arrived it seemed to disappear. Although disappointing for Joe Public – after all, everyone feels better when the sun is shining – the blip in the summer weather was very good news indeed for the indoor tanning business. As the plan to tan was already underway for many, if nature wasn’t going to provide the natural tanning resource, there was a salon on every high street which could, and in fact, did!
And that’s just one of the reasons, particularly with the British being so obsessed with the weather, why good tanning salons in the UK do well. Alongside those who love to tan year round, during the summer months, people don’t just enjoy the sunshine; they optimistically expect it after the long, grey winter. So when nature doesn’t deliver, a tanning bed session is quite simply the route to tan and, in my opinion, is always the better option.
Of course, with our opponents also recognising the desire to tan at this time of year, their anti-tanning campaigns are often strategically developed to target this peak usage time. These campaigns come as no surprise – yet, we were recently the target of one such campaign that was so off-beam that even the most popular media vehicles chose to ignore it.
The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) provides national guidance on healthcare issues. They recently launched their Guidelines for best practice in healthcare provision when caring for people with melanoma. This was no doubt a welcomed and relevant document for all those touched by melanoma, as well as for the organisations and individuals responsible for delivering healthcare in this field. However (and it is a very frustrating however), the story behind the launch of the Guidelines was spun to suggest that people weren’t listening to advice about “the alleged dangers” of using indoor tanning beds. Yet please take note, there was not a single mention of indoor tanning beds in the 54-page document!
Somewhat surprisingly given our media’s appetite for all things to do with indoor tanning but equally disappointing given its requirement to be relevant, honest and impartial, the only element of the media to pick up on this “story” was the BBC. We haven’t yet gotten to the bottom of why they went for this, but suffice to say they had produced a “story” of an over-tanned tanning bed user, sent a car for me and no doubt for other spokespeople to go to and from the studio, and so on. I wonder just how much this one little “story” with no genuine news value cost the British television licence payer. (The BBC is the recipient of the income from the national TV Licence.)
Rather than taking the more obvious and sensible opportunity to remind the millions of Brits about to jet off on their sun-soaked holidays to be careful in the sun, it was truly frustrating to find indoor tanning beds the unwarranted target for this “story.” It just didn’t and still doesn’t make sense. However, in the end I am rather pleased to say it actually turned out surprisingly well. Not only did we have the chance to comfortably present our position that any risks regarding UV exposure are in connection with over-exposure or burning – NOT tanning – we also essentially had the ‘‘opposition” spokesperson agreeing with that position too! You can see the interview at http://tinyurl.com/ppdpzwn
Sometimes, we can find positives when we least expect them; just like a ray of sunshine on a cloudy day!
