In a bid to grow its market share across the Gulf region, Nivea encouraged Arab women to express themselves through writing and bring it to life through short films. This case study looks at how the beauty brand combined social and video content to help sales of its new body lotion steal 12% market share from its largest rival in just a year.
Case study summary
• Nivea aims to launch new lotion with personal storytelling campaign on social and TV
• 1,400 stories submitted, with three turned into long-from cinematic video ads
• The ads boosting purchase intent by 26% beating sales targets by 11% and stealing 12% market share from the leader
The challenge
To launch new NIVEA ‘Sensual Musk Body Lotion’ the beauty brand had to positively connect with Arabic Women and prompt users to switch brands.
With ‘Arabian Musk’ the most popular and widespread scent in the region, NIVEA aimed to demonstrate that its new offering provided Arab women the smell they love with the superior moisturisation they require.
Bespoke research yielded an insight that a woman’s scent (and particularly Musk) is very much an expression of their personality and sensuality.
The research also found that Saudi women were also beginning to express themselves and their sensitive sides through writing - be it poetry or short-stories.
Using this insight and the popularity of writing, our strategy was to invite women to share their own romantic stories with us – either real or fictional. This led Nivea to the idea of ‘Captivating Tales’.
The solution
The beauty brand advertised on social-media, brand websites, via TV integration, magazine editorial and direct marketing to encourage people to submit their own life stories. In just four weeks, they received more than 1,400 stories submitted online totalling over 2 million words.
Nivea tasked film director Emirati Nayla Al Khaja to bring to life the Captivating Tales of women in 5min short-films. Nayla, along with Sayidati magazine and NIVEA read through the entries and selected the three most compelling stories.
‘The Wait’, ‘Impressions’ and ‘New Beginning’ were then filmed, produced and given their broadcast debut through a branded integration on the region’s biggest TV channel MBC1, online and aired in cinemas.
Partnering with Nayla, not only could they bring the women’s stories to life visually, giving them a huge platform but also capture the cultural nuances of the region. Numerous touch-points were used to support and push ‘Captivating Tales’ further, including social-media, the brand website, TV integration, magazine editorial and direct marketing.
The results
The ads were both compelling and relevant, boosting purchase intent by 26% and product recommendation by 100%.
In fact, nearly 1m Nivea Musk products were sold in the region in 2013, a huge 11% more than targeted.
Finally, Nivea Musk not only captured 12% market share from the market leader, but also contributed a 67% growth to the category. The videos themselves generated 18 month’s worth of view time online.
Watch this 'Behind the Scenes' video showing the films being made below:
