Parallel lives….

“Use sun cream all year round to stop skin damage,” urges a headline in this weekend's Sunday Times.

The article says that “sunscreen should be used all year round, even in cloudy weather, to protect against long-term damage that can cause cancer.” It goes on to suggest that people “should apply factor 15 sunscreen every morning, even if they are going to spend most of the day indoors.” A healthcare PR, somewhere, is very happy.

The report came from the British Skin Foundation which exists “solely for the purpose of supporting research into skin disease.” Thank goodness, we thought it was a sunscreen laundering front.

Of course ‘supporting research’ doesn’t come cheap, and so thankfully the British Skin Foundation has what it calls 11 corporate partners. However, if you give it your best Columbo, you’ll notice it’s actually 11 product brands. Turn and pause dramatically just before you walk out of the door, and you’ll see that four of the products belong to Garnier. Look confused, adjust your rain jacket, cock-your-head-to-one-side-and-squint-a-little, and you’ll see that one of them is Garnier Ambre Solaire suncream. Hoorah.

The Garnier Ambre Solaire website, incidentally, is as pleased as punch with its endorsement from the British Skin Foundation (and the eagle-eyed will have noticed that the British Skin Foundation gets featured in Garnier’s TV advertising too).

Ah well, all’s fair in love and suncream sales (even your skin, presumably). It’s standard third party endorsement, nothing more.

Still, with all this sunscreen to buy so that we don’t drop dead from skin cancer within the next 31 seconds, we’re off to sell a project to a client based on the need for some very expensive compliance software. And if those damned CIOs don’t believe what our software vendor has to say, they’ll sure as hell believe the relevant hired hand at Laboratoires Gartner in Egham.