INTB5100 · Team Marketing Project · Summer 2026

Boots Soltan
The Sun & Skin Rebrand

A brand strategy case for INTB5100: turning a fragmented, beach-coded UK suncare line into one navy-and-gold system built for customers who don't fit neatly into a single segment. Includes a brief note on why Soltan can't sell in the US as-is, and why the rebrand needs to be legible to AI shopping tools, not just people.

Team: Ann Macon Watkins (Project & Team Coordinator) · Josh Keselman · Colin Trochmann · Cash Bluestone · Veronica Merry

2 Categories, One System
4 Needs-Based Segments
59% UK Users Wearing SPF Daily

This case was produced for INTB5100's Team Marketing Project, which asked each team to take a British brand not sold in the US and build a full market-entry and brand strategy: desk research, customer needs, synthetic-data segmentation, personas, and a product and brand redesign. GenAI was treated as a tool to use and critique throughout, not a source of truth.

As project and team coordinator, I owned the master timeline across all four project steps, kept the team's roles and deadlines on track, and contributed to the desk research and strategic recommendation that shaped where the team ultimately landed.

Our brand was Boots Soltan, a UK-only, award-winning suncare line owned by Walgreens Boots Alliance. It isn't sold in the US for a fairly dry regulatory reason, more on that briefly below, but the real story here, and the focus of this case, is what a fragmented UK brand looks like once it's rebuilt as one coherent system.

Skills Demonstrated

  • Market & regulatory research
  • Needs-based segmentation
  • Target selection & persona development
  • Brand & positioning strategy
  • Team & timeline coordination
  • GenAI critique & verification
In This Case
01 US & UK, Briefly 02 Segments & Target 03 Key Learnings 04 The Rebrand 05 Built for AI 06 GenAI Verdict
Desk Research

US & UK, Briefly

Soltan sells well at home. It isn't sold in the US at all, and the reason is regulatory, not a demand problem.

The US regulates sunscreen as an FDA drug, so every UV filter needs slow, expensive approval, and the US has cleared almost no new filters in about twenty years. The UK and EU regulate sunscreen as a cosmetic, a lighter framework that keeps pace with newer formulas. Soltan's UK filters simply aren't cleared for the US market, which is a real barrier to entry. It's worth naming, but it isn't the interesting problem in this case. The more interesting problem, and the one the rebrand actually solves, is what Soltan looks like on the shelf it's already winning in the UK.

For context: the global suncare market runs about $15 to 16 billion in 2025, headed toward $25 to 28 billion by the early 2030s, and roughly 59% of UK shoppers now wear SPF most days, not just on holiday. No single UK brand holds more than about 22% share, which is exactly the kind of fragmented, winnable category a confident rebrand can move in on.

Segmentation · Target Selection

Four Segments, One Deliberate Bet

Built from a 40-respondent synthetic dataset scored across seven consolidated customer needs, grouped by need pattern instead of demographics.

Protective Parents
≈30% of sample

Parents of young kids; buy family SPF50+, prioritize safety over aesthetics; value-aware but will pay for peace of mind.

Target
Everyday Skincare Converts
≈28% of sample

Younger, urban, skincare-savvy; wear facial SPF daily under makeup; obsess over texture and no white cast; will trade up for feel.

Ethical Minimalists
≈20% of sample

Ingredient-readers and eco-buyers; reef-safe matters; deeply skeptical of greenwashing and vague sustainability claims.

Value Sun-Seekers
≈23% of sample

Seasonal, price-led buyers; one big holiday purchase a year. Brand story is irrelevant: price and the SPF number decide.

Why Everyday Skincare Converts: this segment rides the category's biggest trend, suncare becoming a daily skincare habit instead of a holiday purchase, and it's genuine white space for Soltan, which currently owns "family and holiday" but has almost no presence in daily facial SPF. It also plays directly to Soltan's real assets: trust, industry awards, and value, which interviewees said would make them trust a cheaper brand for their face.

The Segments Overlap in Real Life

These four segments aren't four different people. In the synthetic dataset, most respondents scored high across more than one need set at once, and the clearest overlap sits between Protective Parents and Everyday Skincare Converts. She's often the same shopper: buying Kids SPF for her children in one aisle, then wearing daily facial SPF under her own makeup at home. A brand built around one rigid segment forces her to choose between them. A unified Sun & Skin system doesn't.

The Tension We Named Honestly

Soltan has trust and value equity but not skincare credibility yet. Every simulated interviewee described it as a "beach/kids brand, not my face." Closing that gap, through texture, derm-testing proof, and a modern look, became the central job of the rebrand.

Strategic Takeaways

Key Learnings

01Market leaders have real room and reason to change. A fragmented category with no dominant player is a winnable one.
02One person can embody several "target" consumer profiles at once. Segmentation isn't as clean as the labels suggest, and the Soltan data proved it directly.
03The wellness industry matters to marketers more than ever. Framing a product as skincare, not just protection, changes its category.
04The product is not what's being sold. The meaning is.
05AI is becoming part of consumers' daily lives, which changes how brands need to show up and be found.
The Rebrand

The Rebrand: One System, Two Categories, One Trusted Name

Without changing the underlying product, the team redesigned Soltan from a fragmented, beach-coded sunscreen line into a single navy-and-gold "sun & skin" system, and extended it from suncare into daily makeup.

In One Sentence

The Soltan rebrand replaces a fragmented, bright, holiday-coded sunscreen line with one unified navy-and-gold "British Sun & Skin Experts" system, spanning both suncare and a new tinted-skincare/makeup range, under the line "Advanced Protection. Everyday Elegance," designed to close the credibility gap with daily-SPF, skincare-first shoppers without alienating Soltan's existing family and value customers.

Before: Current Boots Soltan Packaging
Current Boots Soltan Kids suncare range, yellow and blue beach packaging Current Boots Soltan SPF30, Face SPF, and Aftersun product shots Current Boots Soltan Protect & Moisturise suncare stick packaging

↓ redesigned into one system ↓

After: The Rebrand Concept
Soltan rebrand concept: unified navy and gold packaging system for a Sun Care range and a new Makeup line, under the tagline Advanced Protection, Everyday Elegance

Why This Rebrand Works

From Interview Insight to Design Decision

Every design choice traces back to something a target-segment interviewee actually said, not a stylistic guess.

Interview InsightDesign Decision
Texture is the hero: "if it leaves a white cast, it's gone" Lightweight formats across the line (UV fluid, gel, skin tint) with explicit "invisible finish" callouts on pack.
SPF is worn under or with makeup, every day The makeup line itself (primer, skin tint, setting powder) built on SPF logic, not bolted onto it.
Shade range and "will this suit me" doubt "For every skin" framing, buildable coverage, natural-finish positioning across the makeup range.
"I'd only trust a value brand for my face with proof" Dermatologically-tested labeling and clinical credibility cues: the "British Sun & Skin Experts" line.
It's a perception problem, not a trust problem The whole system repositions Soltan rather than rebuilding it. Same trusted formulas, new visual language.

Brand Repositioning

What Changes, What Stays

"British Sun Care Experts" becomes "British Sun & Skin Experts." Soltan keeps its navy-and-gold heritage, trust, and value positioning intact. What's new is beauty credibility and a modern, elevated look, earning a place in the daily skincare routine instead of just the beach bag.

Supporting Recommendations

01Streamline packaging into one visual system across all sub-lines.
02Increase brand credibility by pivoting to a wellness/lifestyle strategy rather than a purely pragmatic one.
03Solidify credibility as a quasi-pharmaceutical, trusted product. Lean into the science, not just the price.
04Amplify appeal to the Everyday Skincare Converts target to lift sales into a new daily-use occasion.
05Continue marketing to current core consumers, families and value-driven, budget-conscious buyers, to avoid alienating existing equity.
The Rebrand Concept
SOLTAN
Advanced Protection. Everyday Elegance.
"For every skin. For every day."
New line extension: Sun Care (Daily, Sensitive, Kids, Face, Sport) + Makeup (Perfect, Even, Enhance, Finish). One identity, two categories, zero formula changes.

Phase 2 opportunity: our Boots.com range audit found Soltan's self-tan line quietly discontinued, real white space the rebrand is positioned to reclaim next.

Companion Research · AI Buying Journey

Why the Rebrand Has to Be Legible to AI, Not Just Attractive to People

A companion analysis for the same INTB5100 team tested whether an AI shopping agent would recommend Soltan at all. It didn't.

Given a realistic brief (oily skin, a £20 budget, non-comedogenic, no white cast, wearable under makeup), an AI shopping agent returned La Roche-Posay Anthelios UVMune 400 as its top pick, backed by dermatologist endorsements and over 1,000 indexed reviews. Soltan never made the shortlist.

Not because the product is worse. Soltan's market position was built on shelf placement and in-store discovery, the signals a human shopper responds to, not the signals an AI agent filters on: structured ingredient data, indexed reviews, clinical citations, and clean certifications.

"A brand can hold real market share and still be completely absent from the AI-mediated version of the same market."

What This Means for the Rebrand

Required Deliverable

Evaluating GenAI as a Research Tool

Every AI output was treated as a first draft to fact-check, not a source of truth, logged step by step across the project.

GenAI OutputStatusWhat We Did
Market size figures Varies by source Different firms gave $14–16B for 2025 with different CAGRs, so we cited a range and named the source instead of one number.
"Soltan is reef-safe" Partly true Meets the Hawaii Reef Bill, but still contains octocrylene, which stricter reef-safe standards exclude. We didn't overclaim it.
Synthetic consumer dataset Unrealistic first pass First pass had uniform, unrealistic scores; we re-prompted and hand-checked distributions in Excel.
Simulated customer interviews Too tidy Vivid but overly aligned with our own assumptions. Flagged as a limitation, not treated as evidence.
Regulatory explanation (FDA vs. EU) Verified & strong Confirmed accurate against FDA and industry sources. Became the team's lead insight.

Overall verdict: GenAI was strongest at structure, speed, and first drafts: needs lists, synthetic data, personas, copy, and packaging visuals. It was weakest at live facts, realism, and strategic judgment (brand fit, target choice, knowing when a design was too safe). We used it as a fast first draft, never as the final word.