Most parents are aware that prolonged exposure to the sun presents a health risk to their children. The obstacle that parents face is that some kids just do not like to wear sunscreen. Like most problems out there, someone is bound to look for a solution, even if the solution is designed to drive awareness through humor.
Sunscreen manufacturer Nivea did exactly that, and created a fun ad campaign backed by some serious technology to protect kids from the sun and also to sell more of its sunscreen to parents. It features nothing other than a UV detecting, sunscreen pooping drone, designed to look like a seagull and drop sunscreen on unsuspecting kids at the beach.
Nivea outfitted the drone with a special UV camera that allows operators to identify kids who are not wearing sunscreen. Those without sunscreen show up much darker on the drone’s screen than kids wearing sunscreen, as the ones going without are soaking up more of the potentially harmful UV rays from the sun. This allows the drone operators to target the kids most at risk.
Most kids aerial bombed by a seagull would run screaming to the nearest parent, most likely shouting something like, “Ewwww, get it off!, get it off!” Nivea, however, apparently counts on the kids to instead spread the mess all over their bodies. One would hope that the kids involved did not confuse the drone for an actual seagull.
Ultimately, we learn that the kids and parents were in on the gag. At least the delivery method was creative, and Nivea used some cool UV detection technology that could actually work to identify kids without sunscreen.
As a disclaimer, unless Nivea contacts you and tells you that their seagull drone is in the area, we would not count on any droppings that land on your children to be sunscreen.
