Nivea celebrates 100 years with massive campaign

HAMBURG, Germany — Beiersdorf's Nivea brand is celebrating its 100th anniversary with a global campaign that launches May 15 called "100 Years Skincare for Life."

Nivea's marketing budget for 2011 is around 1 billion Euros (about $1.5 billion), and roughly 70% of that is being invested in the new campaign. Nivea hopes that the investment will strengthen the brand and stabilize its position as the No. 1 skin care brand.

"We know that people only feel comfortable in their skin if they are happy about the way they look. According to a study, that is currently only around 10% of all women worldwide. This knowledge was one of the main factors in our decision to make skin the focus of our campaign," said Markus Pinger, Beiersdorf board member for the brands.

Serving as the voice of the Nivea anniversary campaign is singer Rihanna whose song "California King Bed" will accompany the campaign throughout. There will be consumer promotions with Rihanna concert tickets as prizes, plus 10 million online codes on products for exclusive Rihanna downloads from the Nivea website.

Nivea is looking to mobilize Rihanna's fan community in such social networks as Facebook and YouTube and indicated that 10% of the campaign budget is dedicated to digital activities. Nivea is sponsoring Rihanna's "Loud" tour of the United States and Europe and organizing a range of activities to address young consumers. A Nivea local blogger also will be reporting on the tour. It is expected that campaign activities on the Nivea websites will generate some 120 million messages and dialogues on social media platforms worldwide.

The digital campaign is flanked by a multilevel Nivea television and print campaign that initially focuses on Nivea cream in the blue tin. It will be followed by a product campaign featuring the Visage, Body and Deo product lines. Mega posters, billboards and city lights, will support all campaigns internationally.

The company also stated that the world's biggest skin advisory tour in retail with more than 75,000 promotions also will be running. It is expected to generate more than 13 million consumer contacts, including around 1.7 million consultations with individual skin analyses.