The archive · Marketing & Growth · Marketing decision · 2025–2026
Evil Ray sells sunscreen as war on a murderous sun — sole D&AD 2026 AU/NZ Yellow Pencil
Pembleton built a sunscreen brand on the premise that the sun is trying to kill you — winning the only D&AD 2026 Yellow Pencil for Australia or New Zealand.
Evil Ray · Pembleton
What it had to solve
Close to 70% of Australians will get skin cancer from sun exposure, yet only 38% use sunscreen regularly. The category was full of near-identical, clinical tubes, so Pembleton set out to break consumer apathy rather than claim a better formula.
How it works
In December 2025, Australian independent agency Pembleton launched Evil Ray, a sunscreen line built entirely on one premise: the sun is not something to worship but an evil entity trying to kill us all. The brand's launch materials pointed to a confronting local reality — close to 70% of Australians will get skin cancer due to sun exposure, while only 38% use sunscreen regularly — and set out to break the apathy that more clinical packaging had never moved.
Pembleton ran the project end to end: formulation, packaging, manufacturing, sales and marketing, with New Zealand studio Seachange designing the identity. The result was a full fictional world — an 'evil sun' logo by artist Reg Mombassa, potion-inspired tombstone-shaped bottles, a supernatural palette and an irreverent tone dubbing the brand 'the official enemy of the sun.' The recycled-plastic packaging included manufacturing firsts in tooling and blow moulds created in Melbourne, and its UV-reactive label tells people when to reapply regardless of cloud cover.
The launch was spearheaded by a social film directed by Julian Frost that opened with a naked Adam and Eve holding hands beneath a glaring sun, backed by out-of-home and bespoke retail partnerships. At the D&AD Awards 2026 the identity won a Yellow Pencil in New Brand Identity and a Graphite Pencil for Packaging Design — the only Yellow Pencil awarded across Australia and New Zealand that year.
Why it lands
- It attacked the real problem — indifference — rather than competing on SPF numbers, where the category had nothing left to say.
- The villain framing gave every touchpoint a job: the sun logo, the tombstone bottles, the UV-reactive label and the tone all serve one story.
- A full brand world made a low-interest commodity feel collectible and worth talking about, turning public-health messaging into entertainment.
- End-to-end ownership let the agency keep the idea intact from formulation to store shelf, so the fiction never got diluted.
What it did
The identity won a D&AD 2026 Yellow Pencil in New Brand Identity plus a Graphite for Packaging Design — the only Yellow Pencil awarded to either Australia or New Zealand that year — and put the 'sun as villain' idea on shelves and in industry discussion.
What you can take
When a category is stuck in identical visual language, change the story instead of the specs: a full fictional world made a commodity sunscreen feel like a character worth picking up.
Since then
Evil Ray launched Australia-wide in December 2025 with three hero SKUs — a face sunscreen and two body sunscreens — and planned an expanded range for 2026. The brand was on shelves across Australia and drew international coverage, including D&AD's own archive, where the work is described as summoning 'a mischievous, otherworldly spirit' to make sun protection an everyday act of survival. The D&AD 2026 Yellow and Graphite Pencils made it the standout Australian design work of that year's awards.
Sources
- Pembleton launches Evil Ray: A sun protection company calling the sun out for what it is – an evil entity trying to kill us all
- How Evil Ray became Australia + New Zealand's sole Yellow Pencil winner at the D&AD Awards
- Evil Ray — D&AD Awards 2026
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