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It’s used by over half a million people around the world and sold in more than 200 countries, making NIVEA the biggest and best-selling skincare brand on the market. This year marks 100 years since the brand first began when three visionary men came together to develop what has now become the highly recognisable snow white cream of NIVEA.
In 1890, Hamburg pharmacist Dr Oscar Troplowitz purchased the company Beiersdorf from its founder Paul C. Beriersdorf. After extending the existing product range, registering patents and advertising his products, Troplowitz was ready for the next challenge.
In 1911, Troplowitz was introduced to chemist Dr Isaac Lifschütz by his scientific research consultant, world-famous dermatologist Professor Dr Paul Gerson Unna. Lifschütz had developed an emulsifier called Eucerit” that made it possible to bind water and oil into a stable emulsion. The entrepreneurial Tropolowitz recognised this would make the perfect basis for a cosmetic skin cream, and convinced Lifschütz to enter the cosmetics market rather than marketing his discovery to the medical sector.
Lifschütz sold his Eucerit patent to Troplowitz who called the cream NIVEA. The name was derived from the Latin word for snow, nix, nivis, due to its white colour. The decision proved a wise one, with the new product soon conquering the market as a skin and cosmetic cream. NIVEA Crème was a revolutionary product - it was the first cream to be accessible to people from all social classes and ethnic backgrounds and protected the skin against wind, cold and sun.
Sold in a yellow tin with green art nouveau decorations, the product appealed to both the male and female markets. Female customers loved the creamy consistency having previously only had access to water, soap and powder, while the men discovered the benefit of applying it to their skin after shaving. The cream’s stable formula meant it could easily be shipped around the world, and in 1914 NIVEA Crème was already sold in 34 countries.
NIVEA’s distinctive blue and white tin was developed in 1925 to keep in line with the changing times post World War I. Beiersdorf’s head of advertising Juan Gregorio Clausen recognised that NIVEA needed packaging that reflected the company’s fundamental values of trustworthiness, honesty and innocence, and came up with the classic blue and white tin design that has barely changed since its first creation.
From 1929 to 1936 the company developed a range of new products, including shaving cream, shampoo and its first sunscreen products – NIVEA Nut Oil and Ultra Oil. The 1930s saw the launch of NIVEA Whitepaste, a cream specifically formulated for women in Japan and China. NIVEA has remained popular in the oriental markets, with NIVEA for Men the market leader in the Chinese men’s care market.
With people buying an increased amount of cosmetic items, new product segments were developed under the NIVEA umbrella from 1982 until 1996 – including NIVEA Visage with a line of face care products, NIVEA for Men, NIVEA Hair Care, NIVEA body, NIVEA Sun and NIVEA Bath Care.
A century on and the product range continues to grow, with NIVEA now covering all areas of skin and body care. Last year, the brand created net sales for Beiersdorf of almost four billion Euros. Each day there are 500,000 blue tins pressed and 50 tons of NIVEA Crème produced. This equates to 125 million NIVEA Crème tins filled with 12,500 tons of cream each year.
In accordance with its 2011 business strategy Focus on Skin Care. Closer to Markets”, Beiersdorf is placing NIVEA at the centre of its plans. Skincare is the strongest growing segment of the global cosmetics market. By 2015, 45 per cent of the total growth in the cosmetics market is expected to come from this area. With NIVEA as the largest skin care brand in the world, we will profit from this strong growth,” says Beiersdorf board member responsible for brands Markus Pinger.
This year, the company is also giving NIVEA major marketing pushes with over 75,000 promotional stands in retail stores and around 1.7 million consultations including individual skin analysis. The brand will also launch a digital mobilisation campaign in social media, incorporating music from Rihanna. With significant investments in the high double-digit millions that we are making available for this year’s NIVEA marketing budget, we will strengthen NIVEA for the long term with worldwide activities in the 100th anniversary year. Thereby we will stabilize and expand the worldwide number one position in skin care,” states Pinger.
The global activation package for the company will see consumers being able to communicate and connect to the world of NIVEA at a higher level. With the new strategy, the planned activities and NIVEA’s new branding we are showing that NIVEA 100 years after its birth is still young, modern, and a powerful innovator in cosmetics and above all, is a synonym for skin care that endures,” says Pinger.