Sun Bum: Tom Rinks. The Secrets of a Master Brand Builder (2023)
with Tom Rinks
Executive Summary
Tom Rinks traces a path from furniture sales and licensed apparel through character design, a dispute involving Taco Bell and later Sun Bum branding. The central theme is creating a recognizable consumer brand and finding the people and operating model for its next stage. The account includes misleading early marketing anecdotes, which these notes do not endorse, and a civil commercial dispute, not an independently established criminal finding. Sunscreen safety, regulatory and performance claims require separate evidence.
Key Takeaways
Takeaway 1
Rinks credits retail selling with learning what different customers care about. The story also includes staged demand and gendered sales assumptions. Those are anecdotes, not recommended tactics. Use customer research and truthful demonstrations rather than fabricated urgency, stereotypes or false social proof.
Takeaway 2
Rinks recounts gaining a buyer meeting despite having little stock and then explaining the actual situation. The useful distinction is between showing an early sample honestly and misrepresenting an established operation. Do not copy the bluff; keep availability, credentials and promised capacity accurate.
Takeaway 3
He describes noticing how styles move among groups over time. Such observations can generate a positioning hypothesis, but an informal coolness curve is not a reliable forecast. Test the intended audience and avoid assuming that an older or broader buyer necessarily damages a brand.
Takeaway 4
Rinks recounts a long civil dispute about work associated with Taco Bell and a later financial outcome. These are a party’s version of events; legal labels, amounts, appeals and settlement details are not independently established here. Clear agreements and qualified legal advice matter more than treating one verdict story as a general rule.
Takeaway 5
The Sun Bum discussion links packaging, color, imagery and tone into a recognizable identity. Those creative choices explain the brand in his account, not evidence that design outranks every other buying factor. Cosmetic and sunscreen performance, safety, labeling and market authorization need appropriate independent work.
Takeaway 6
Rinks describes displays, stickers and a fictional headquarters as ways to make the business seem established. The misleading elements are not endorsed. Test recognizable, truthful identity and permitted displays; obtain property permission for stickers and disclose locations or operations accurately.
Takeaway 7
He describes bringing in operating leadership as the company grew and a later buyer with additional capabilities. This does not mean a creative founder must leave on a set timetable. Match responsibilities, resources and regulatory expertise to the actual next stage, and evaluate any sale on its real terms.
The Conversation Breakdown
The shark tank of furniture sales
A minister's son from Long Beach who traded church for drawing, Tom studied art at Hope College and landed at Art Van Furniture in Grand Rapids: full commission, no salary, 'shark-infested waters.' Five years there - ending as sales manager - taught him to read what each customer wanted to feel and to stage urgency. David Ogilvy's dictum (creativity is worthless if you can't sell) became his spine.
One t-shirt and a bluff: Surf Michigan to New Agenda
Surfers on flat Lake Michigan inspired a joke cartoon - an old, cobwebbed longboarder 'waiting for the big one.' Tom bluffed into Meijer's HQ as a surfwear rep with one shirt in a suit bag, confessed, and left with an 1,800-shirt order from buyer Vivian Dreyer ('she changed my life'). The Fab Five era brought a University of Michigan license (royalty only, no fee) and 10,000 'Slam Dance' shirts in a season - then 400+ licenses and thin profits, because he had 'no concept of margins.'
Psycho Chihuahua and the deal that wasn't
With cartoonist Joe Shields he built the Psycho Chihuahua line ('big dogs suck'), which blew up at the Super Show and the Javits Licensing Show. Taco Bell's brand team, hunting a mascot, found the booth; 18 months of co-development followed - tray liners, uniforms, hats, posters, written and storyboarded commercials, a real dog replacing the cartoon - shepherded by licensing agent Arlene Scanlan. In 1997 Taco Bell ghosted; three months later the Chihuahua ads aired, 'like a knife to the chest.'
Five years against Taco Bell
The breach-of-implied-contract suit lost summary judgment in 1999; they appealed anyway. The war pulled Tom and Joe's working partnership apart and made Tom 'the guy suing Taco Bell' at school pickup. At trial Taco Bell finally offered a few million in chambers - the lawyers begged them to refuse - and after a 3.5-week trial and three days of cross-examination, the jury read 'guilty on all counts': $30.1M plus $12M interest. Taco Bell appealed, then settled; after 33% legal fees, costs, the agent's 25%, a 50/50 split with Joe and taxes, each man netted roughly $5-6M.
A nonprofit detour and a Danish designer
Between chapters, Tom built a nonprofit producing Christian videos with pastor Rob Bell - an attempt to repair what he saw as the ugly 'brand of Christianity' - and met Rene Kennedy, a Copenhagen brand designer and atheist who took the half-pay job because no one had ever built an 'on-ramp' for people like him. In 2007 they formalized Rinks Kennedy: brand-building for a fee plus equity, 'little chips on the roulette wheel' - Rock and Republic, and DeLeón Tequila with childhood friend Brent Hawking (sterling-skull cork, $125-$850 bottles).
Sun Bum: engineering a brand explosion
In 2009 a school-dad group with three failing sunscreen labels hired Tom to diagnose them; he told them to ditch everything. His three-month process - research, ideation, design - produced the wood-grain bottle, the yellow ape Sunny (born one weekend on Rene's screen, 'exactly what you see today'), the Elvis-principle personality mash, and the Cocoa Beach fiction that quickly became a real Florida office. Sticker-bombing, the January 2010 Surf Expo, relentless rep Michael A. Sera ('without him we wouldn't have made it'), and forced full displays took Sun Bum from $100K to $1.1M in year two, then Necker Island exclusivity, the Breakers and the Four Seasons.
CEO swap, scale wall, $400M exit
The original owners sold the company to Tom and Rene; operations moved to California in 2014. Tom handed the CEO seat to Australian ex-pro-surfer Adam Francis around year three-to-four. With roughly $70M in annual sales and international demand blocked by drug-regulation complexity, the company reportedly sold to SC Johnson in 2019 for $400M - nine years after launch. Tom, still deliberately invisible ('I flexed by doing the work'), now designs brands like Made by Dentists.
Core Frameworks & Ideas
Contrasting brand associations [editorial synthesis]
Rinks uses an Elvis analogy to explain combining edge with warmth. Test whether intended customers understand and value that combination; it is not a general law of branding.
Character-rights and fit review [editorial synthesis]
A mascot can create recognition but still needs design, IP rights, permissions, maintenance and possible royalties. Compare those obligations with other forms of identity.
Retail-presence test [editorial synthesis]
Compare a complete display with smaller placements using actual space, stock, margin and retailer constraints. A mandatory full display may help some contexts and exclude useful outlets in others.
Name-comprehension test [editorial synthesis]
Test whether a name conveys a useful association and is understood, memorable and legally available. Including the category can help, but is not required for every strong brand.
Actionable Next Steps
- ✓Plan a bounded research, concept and design cycle using the budget and uncertainty of the actual product, not a fixed universal timetable.
- ✓Compare references from several areas, verify design rights and test the resulting identity with intended customers.
- ✓Test logo recognition in permitted research or placements; get property permission before any stickers or public display.
- ✓Compare full displays with smaller retail trials using actual retailer constraints and inventory risk rather than banning partial orders automatically.
- ✓Review leadership needs as the business grows and clarify decision rights, required expertise and a possible transition plan.
Notable Quotes
“I saw just a gigantic hole that you could drive through.”
“not make it for other people, you make it for yourself”
“I knew it would be a great sticker. I knew it would be great everything.”
“people buy things because the way they make them feel”
“they read guilty on all counts.”
“We knew we needed it to seem bigger than it was.”
“just tell them it's unbelievable”
The One Thing to Remember
Build a recognizable, truthful brand identity while separately verifying product performance, safety, rights and operating capacity.