[Robbie]

My thanks to Arubatan for his well wishes and support--he is actually a very good competitor of mine near the UT campus in Austin--hi

I am not sure I am comfortable with all these references about my ‘balls’

I am not championing any cause, nor am I trying to take on the State for the right to make health claims.

I clearly understand that we are unable to make health claims. When asked to comment on that fact, philosophically I identified this as a denial of free speech, but in no way did I imply that our advertising is our means of challenging this law.

I have no desire to change this law (unlike my friend at ArubaTan).

Our advertising is designed to comply with the law.

Our advertising campaigns don’t make health claims. They are designed only to posit the idea that there is a connection between tanning (at Darque Tan) and vitamin D.

Simply, A produces B…or in this case D.

We don’t say whether A or D is good for you…just that one leads to the other…a description of the process, which our regulations requires us to disclose to customers.

We don’t promote or claim that our services will lessen disease and it is certainly never included in our sales pitch.

The news story did expose the fact that my staff could be tricked by skilled interns into making a ‘gotcha’ piece for a news station. Their knowledge of vitamin D is as it should be. Everything they said was true, but the fact that they said it was wrong, if the context were truly a sales pitch to a customer (which it wasn’t).

Our sales pitches, printed in our training materials and built into our software, are available on screen, live for employees to follow in the salons. There is nothing in any of this material about vitamin d, health benefits or cancer.

We don’t sell the $18.88 breast cancer-survival membership or the defeat-diabetes super saver

A few of our employees were duped by motivated reporters sent in to elicit health claims, and this should be a wake up call for many. It has been for me.

We now have a counter card titled HEALTH CLAIMS which basically says that regulations prohibit us from making them…Go ask your doctor about the connection between vitamin D deficiency and disease, or just google Vitamin D.

Our staff makes a point of saying we can’t make health claims. We say "that while Time magazine named vitamin D as one of the top 10 medical breakthroughs for 2007, and the New York Times dubbed it “the nutrient of the decade”, we as a tanning salon operators are unable to make health related claims…we suggest you take a copy of Real Magazine (on every bed) and ask your doctor or better yet, google vitamin D".

I recommend this course of action to all. At the same time I recommend you follow my lead and advertise your connection to vitamin D, but only in the context that your salon or your beds are a good source of D. Don’t recommend amounts, but do equate exposures to other sources of D. 10 minutes in a tanning bed equals 100 glasses of milk, 50 cans of sardines, etc.

On a positive note, this news story had a Berman-lite effect in my market…I caught a little press and got “in trouble” for making health claims…or so that was the story.

My goal over the last few years has been to make the link between Darque Tan and vitamin D inseparable. Billboard, Radio, TV, and print have all constantly been focused in this direction. I helped craft the opening of this story-

“The negative connotations of tanning beds are fairly universal, but the owner of Darque Tan, one of the largest tanning salon chains in the country, wants you to think something else.

"You want to change it so that when people think tanning beds, they think what?" Davis asked Robbie Segler, the owner of Darque Tan.

"Vitamin D," answered Segler.

References to vitamin D have become a part of every Darque Tan commercial and billboard.”

The instructive part of this episode is that this controversy fashioned some EARNED media for Darque Tan.

People will only remember something about Darque Tan getting in trouble for talking about vitamin D. Could I ask for a better method of connecting my brand to this cause?

My future advertising will thusly be coordinated with this news station and others, so that it becomes a “story”.


This is something that anyone can do locally in their market…and be their own spokesperson.


Just make sure you don’t learn my lesson the hard way and let your staff get tricked into talking about health related issues.