Slip, slop, slap, seek and slide: Australians have had the sun-safety message drilled into them from a young age, to the point they might seem like background noise to many.

Now Queensland Health is taking a slightly different approach to make sure people pay attention.

It’s an important message, with Australia home to the highest melanoma rates in the world.

Queensland Health’s You do the 5. You survive. campaign takes a cue from horror movies, with five videos for every point of the sun-safety slogan painting the Sun as a terrifying monster.

Screams and burned flesh are featured in abundance.

“What was meant to be a peaceful summer holiday takes a horrific turn when a group of friends encounter the sneakiest killer and have to fight to survive,” the campaign synopsis reads.

Steve Doherty, founding director of marketing communications consultancy DoMoCo, said even amid the flood of advertisements, Queensland’s sun-safety awareness ads would grab attention.

“They’re quite arresting and memorable as a result of the way that they have [been executed] … It’s a pretty unique way of communicating the right ways about going about sun care,” he said.

“The negative vibe is, does it become wearing? Do people become dismissive of it? That’s probably the watch out on that.

“If you had to weigh it up, [the campaign has] probably got more pros than cons.”

Taking sun safety into the mundane

Apart from jump-scares, the ads also hone in on the message that sun protection is needed every time we venture outside.

A man quickly stepping outside to put his laundry on the line has his eyes immediately sizzled due to lack of sunglasses; in another video, a woman desperately tries to sit in some shade at a bus stop before ominously disappearing.

Doherty said the everyday scenarios represented a different approach to standard sun-safety advertising.

Love this campaign! https://t.co/l3ai5l2A5f

— Dee Madigan (@deemadigan) December 5, 2023

“Sun-care safety is synonymous with beach life, around the pool, playing sports for a long period of time in the sun … Whereas this takes it into everyday situations where sun is present, and it can be harmful,” he said.

“The actual idea itself of going beyond slip, slop and slapping at the beach is a good idea … because I think we’re cognisant of it … if we’re off to the beach, or if we’re playing tennis.

“But if we’re just walking to the shops or walking to the bus stop … we’re not so.”

Success is not guaranteed

But Dr Mark Boulet, behavioural scientist at Monash University’s BehaviourWorks Australia, said while such campaigns were great at provoking emotional responses and generating buzz on social media, the impact on behaviour was less certain.

He cited an example from 2011, when the American Centres for Disease Control and Prevention tried to encourage Americans to be prepared for natural disasters by releasing a campaign about surviving a zombie apocalypse.

Researchers found that there was no difference between those who watched the campaign and those that did not in their ability to recall what was being asked of them, or their intention to follow the directions.

Some of the results indicated that the campaign’s humour might have undermined the seriousness of the issue for those who saw it – because it was funny, they took it less seriously.

“Emotions are fine to engage with on campaigns, but there must also be a focus on changing behaviours by engaging with the specific drivers and barriers of the target behaviours themselves,” Boulet said.