Black Sun USA
Growing With The Industry
by Scott Eric Barrett
Sam James, Black Sun's founder, believes these particular lamps cater to the majority of the market, and the focus also has allowed the company to develop a particular line of lotions designed to be used specifically with those lamps.
"When tanners use beds with higher levels of UVB, their skin requires special care and also can react to certain properties in our lotions quicker," he says. "We designed our lotions to address those needs and benefits."
With the company's narrow lamp focus and a unique radio promotional campaign, Black Sun USA beams a bright aura within a competitive, growing industry.
Beauty Of A Beginning
James' initiation into the indoor tanning industry occurred in 1987 when he helped install two tanning beds at a family-owned beauty salon. The owners wanted to see how the hair salon customers would respond to indoor tanning, James says.
"We installed the beds just as the tanning industry boomed," he continues. "They literally took over the shop, and eventually we closed the hair salon and began to operate strictly as a tanning salon. The rest is history."
James learned a lot about the tanning industry and about lamps--in particular--during those first few years as a salon operator. In the early 1990s he started distributing lamps, lotions and beds on a small scale. The distribution grew quickly and by 1998, he concluded that manufacturing his own private-label lamps would be the best way to go.
"I knew what I wanted to do, but it took a couple of years to meet the right people and convince them that I was serious about doing this," he says. "The name Black Sun USA officially was born in November 1999, and we distributed our first lamps in January 2000."
The company's aggressive lamp lineup features the Black Sun Reflex series, the High Performance series, the Black Sun Infinity and Black Sun Sting Ray. James says the company's three-product lotion line features Deeper, which is tingle free; Darker, a bronzer with or without tingle; and Faster, a high-performance tingle. Each formula was designed by John Abat International to complement the Black Sun lamps' high-performance abilities.
"We introduced the lotion line last December, and the first products were shipped in January," he says. "We're literally back-ordered at this time. With the lead time on packaging it's been a challenge to make it as fast as we are selling it."
Making Radio Waves
While the company's success with UVB lamps was planned, James admits the success Black Sun found with radio co-op advertising was accidental.
"We stumbled into it accidentally, and it turned out to be a quite successful marketing program," he says. "We started running some radio spots for a salon in Chattanooga, Tenn., to kick off the season. We mentioned in the ad how the salon had just installed the newest and hottest Black Sun high-performance lamps. Before I could blink, all of the local salons were coming in to purchase lamps. We decided to try it in Nashville and other cities and got the same crazy response."
The company now offers an official 50-percent radio co-op advertising program. James would like to find the leading salon in every town, install Black Sun USA lamps and help them with some radio spots.
"If we were able to do that, the other salons in town would see what a leader is all about and then maybe they would consider using our products as well," he says. "It would be tough for us to keep up with all the orders, but it would be worth it for that kind of exposure."
A Sunny Future
Black Sun always will look for ways to cater to people who are the most serious tanners, says James.
"We're working very hard toward developing some new products because we know some of the bigger companies are trying to figure out a way to make their own version of our unique lamp/lotion program," he says. "By the time they copy what we're doing, we should already have Plan B in effect and remain one step ahead of them."
