For the first time in memory, some of the most competitive brands in the sunscreen category have set aside their rivalry to fight a common enemy: TikTok. The #tanmaxxing trend—which glamorizes extended sun exposure with little to no protection—has spread far enough that ZO Skin Health, Supergoop!, EltaMD, Black Girl Sunscreen, and Elizabeth Arden have joined forces for a coordinated social media campaign. The coalition is unprecedented. The threat driving it is real.
Tanmaxxing describes a TikTok-native movement that encourages users—predominantly Gen Z—to maximize their tans through deliberate, prolonged sun exposure. Dermatologists began sounding alarms as the trend accelerated through 2025 and into 2026. A survey by the American Academy of Dermatology found that 50% of Gen Z respondents had already been sunburned in the past year, and 64% reported encountering sunscreen misinformation online. The industry’s response is a social-first edu-tainment campaign deliberately designed in the register of the content it’s competing against—no fear-mongering, no clinical finger-wagging. The campaign meets Gen Z where they are, using the same formats, tone, and platform native aesthetics as the content driving the behavior it’s trying to change. The creative instinct is correct.
The coalition strategy is worth examining beyond the skincare category. It represents a relatively rare instance of direct competitors concluding that category-level behavior change requires industry-level coordination. The underlying insight is sound: when a cultural trend threatens an entire product category’s relevance, competing brands have more to gain from a shared offense than from trying to capture each other’s customers. The marketing lesson generalizes. If a category is losing to culture, individual brands fighting individual battles tend to lose. This is also a clear signal that the sunscreen industry has recognized that its traditional messaging—SPF numbers, ingredient science, dermatologist endorsements—simply isn’t landing with younger consumers the way it once did. The channel and the message both needed to change.
The early indicators from beauty’s broader financial performance suggest the industry is healthy enough to absorb this challenge. L’Oréal outperformed the global beauty market in its most recent report. Unilever upgraded its 2026 outlook after strong Beauty & Personal Care volume growth. Abbvie reported that Botox is recovering. The tanmaxxing challenge is a warning sign—not a crisis—about what happens when an industry allows cultural narratives to outrun its messaging infrastructure. If the coalition campaign works, and its early creative execution suggests it has a real shot, it could become a template for other categories facing culture-driven headwinds.
The Next Wave Take
The real innovation here isn’t the campaign. It’s the coalition. Beauty has been defined by hyper-competition for decades, with brands fighting over SPF percentages and shelf placement. The move to coordinate messaging around a shared consumer safety issue is a maturation of the industry’s relationship with culture—and a recognition that some battles are too big for any one brand to win alone. Brands that can read the moment, recognize when the enemy isn’t the competitor but the trend, and act accordingly are going to build more durable market positions than those still fighting last decade’s battles. The sunscreen coalition is a case study worth saving.