Sun Bum Dressed Dolly Parton—and 49 Other Notable Figures—in a Banana Suit on Saturday

As the birthplace of Dolly Parton, Sevierville, Tenn., offers no shortage of attractions for Parton fans on a pilgrimage. There’s the Pines Theater, where Parton gave her first concert, and the Sevier County High School, where Parton attended classes. And, of course, there’s Dollywood, the 150-acre theme park just south of town. But the must-see stop for any devotee is the square in front of the courthouse, where a life-sized bronze statue of the country-music legend has perched atop a boulder since 1987. “No visit to Sevierville … would be complete without a stop at the Dolly Parton statue,” advises the state visitors’ bureau. Rain or shine, scores of fans wait their turn to take selfies with the bronze Dolly, which is arguably the most famous single object in the Smoky Mountains. But for a few hours this weekend, nobody recognized her. That’s because, between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. on Saturday, Dolly was dressed like a banana. Beaver Creek, Colo.'s, Amelia Earhart got her peel, too. In fact, so was the Bob Newhart statue on Chicago’s Navy Pier, the Elvis Presley in Tupelo, Miss. and the Eagles’ Glen Frey, standing on the corner in Winslow, Ariz. In a one-day guerrilla marketing stunt reminiscent of the days before the internet—when a national campaign actually had to be one—sunscreen brand Sun Bum outfitted 50 famous statues (one in each state) with a banana suit. Timed to the start of May—aka National Skin Cancer Awareness Month—Sun Bum said it wants Americans to be conscious of the risks of exposing the skin to ultraviolet radiation. It would also, of course, like to sell them some sunscreen. This is the thinking behind the bananas. The packaging appeal of a peel “We look at a banana as the ideal protection messaging,” marketing vp Russell Radebaugh told Adweek. “It’s covered from head to toe, just like you should be. And since we are not covered head to toe, we need to protect ourselves with things like SPF or shade or sunglasses or other sorts of clothing. So we've kind of adopted [the banana] as a metaphor for us to promote education without using scare tactics.” It might turn out to be plenty scary to see Thomas Edison dressed as a banana (well, his statue in Port Huron, Mich., at any rate), but the double takes that resulted Saturday morning, good or bad, were all part of the engineering. Given that statues are already an open invitation for selfies, Sun Bum and creative shop Funworks figured that statues dressed as bananas would get pretty solid mileage on Instagram. Tough to fit, the Kelly Slater statue in Florida's Cocoa Beach nonetheless found his fans. “We wanted to create something that obviously would manifest itself in the physical world but be easily shareable online,” said Sun Bum executive creative director Jason Tisser. “So that’s kind of the beauty of it.” A bananas campaign in many senses While the campaign is timed to skin cancer awareness, it’s a brand that’s footing the bill for this stunt—and brands need a return on investment. The Sun Bum logo was on all of the costumes, along with a QR code that took people to an information page. There’s also a hashtag—#WeAreNotBananas—a double entendre intended to express both the fact that the statues are not bananas and they’re also also not crazy enough to be out in the sun without protection. For good measure, human reps were on hand to help with the messaging. For good measure, human reps were on hand to help ensure the messages were clear. Sun Bum’s mascot is Sonny, a flip flop-wearing gorilla who, naturally, likes bananas. But the idea for dressing up statues actually came from an ordinary day at the office. Sun Bum headquarters is a literal beach shack full of sofas and pets that stretches the notion of a casual workplace. On Fridays, Radebaugh said, “we started to wear banana suits around the office, which is something that was happening anyway.” And once the practice of wearing banana costumes was normalized, it wasn’t much of a leap to the idea of putting those costumes on famous statues. “Because the company is growing at such a good pace, we decided we want to take this message and go bigger and broader,” Tisser added. If the banana fits… Securing the cooperation of the individual cities and towns wasn’t so difficult. “To be honest with you, a lot of it was them being excited just to get promotion for their local municipalities,” Tisser said. This stylish slicker for Lahaina, Hawaii's Sea Captain was, of course, a banana. The bigger challenge was making 50 custom banana suits. For that, the company tapped Los Angeles costume designer Erik Dixon, whose crew of tailors fanned out to measure the statues, some of which required as many as 20 fittings. The toughest statue to dress as a banana was Kelly Slater, whose Cocoa Beach, Fla., effigy assumes the surf champ’s signature crouching pose with one arm arched over his head. As for Dolly, she was easier, given that she’s just sitting on a rock and all. There’s no word on what the real Dolly might think of being dressed as a banana. But given Parton’s long track record of both philanthropy and humility, odds are she’s cool with it. After all, Parton likes to recount the story of telling her father that Sevierville was erecting a bronze statue of her. “Well, I think that’s great,” Lee Parton told his celebrity daughter. “But just remember that to the fans, you might be some sort of an idol. But to the pigeons, you’re just another outhouse.”