The NIVEA Hair Always On CampaignFrom cooperation to co-creation

Amrei Topcu, Head of Content at Beiersdorf talks about how NIVEA is developing successful campaigns in creative partnerships with influencers.

Our strategy consciously goes beyond mere cooperation. We don’t just see influencers as channels with broad reach, but also as important partners and co-creators. With their help we can better understand our target group and develop stories for the most diverse projects that really interest them. As Head of Content at Beiersdorf I am part of the team behind the digital extension of our current NIVEA Hair campaign. Our goal is the long-term image development of NIVEA as a hair expert, especially among the younger target group. Here too we posed these questions to ourselves: What’s the best way to connect our message with a younger target group by working with influencers? How do we achieve quality reach and high engagement doing this? For this project we chose three campaign partners that are an especially good fit with NIVEA and our target group:

• DominoKati: since 2016 the so-called “Care Expert” has been our brand ambassador for hairstyles and hair subjects;
• Snukieful: also a fixed NIVEA “Care Expert” with topics on hair care and lifestyle;
• KindOfRosy: expert for lifestyle & beauty whom we have chosen for the promotion of the new hair care and styling range.

These three influencers together possess a reach of almost 3 million fans and followers. And with them we can work very individually and develop ideas. In this way all sides remain credible – and that is an important prerequisite for successful influencer marketing.

With the digital extension of the campaign for the new NIVEA hair care and styling range the next step was practical implementation: in order to get the right understanding about target groups and the language of the channels we discussed and developed ideas and topics with DominoKati, Snukieful and KindOfRosy in two inspiring workshops. The three influencers actively participated in the campaign designs and brought a lot of inspiration. In this way numerous ideas for getting our target groups actively involved in the campaign emerged. We also rejected some approaches and elements of the campaigns because of their feedback in order to optimally adapt the content for the respective channel.  

Naturally, this kind of collaboration takes a lot of effort. It is often divided into small sections and is complex requiring flexibility and agility from all those involved. That’s why the conception, project management and part of creation was first mapped out in an in-house agency setup. There was support from a cross-functional team consisting of Content, Media and Influencer Relations Management. The project was managed by local Brand and Campaign Management represented by my colleagues, Jan Lisiecki and Andrea Rohé. 

The close collaboration with DominoKati, Snukieful and KindOfRosy paid off: the three influencers posted diligently in the workshop phase before the start of the campaigns to awaken the curiosity of their communities. With an engagement rate of over nine percent the campaign’s kickoff video performed well above average. Currently, every two weeks additional video content, like reports and tutorials, follows on the channels of NIVEA and the influencers. Posts, Instagram stories and SEO-optimized advice content flank the campaign. The involvement of the influencers as equal partners not only brings valuable creative input, but above all, brings more closeness to the target groups and more emotional connection to the brand. And the special thing is that the content on the influencers’ and NIVEA’s (YouTube, nivea.de, Facebook and Instagram) channels remains available for the long-term – always-on:

• The always-on campaign started on June 12th with a hairstyle challenge including the NIVEA MEET & STYLE contest: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExF9_ZHeyjA
• Every two weeks more video content followed on our own channels and those of the influencers. The first video with the winners of the contest has been recently put online and others will follow: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dg_i0L8PzHA
• Posts, Instagram stories and SEO-optimized advice articles accompany the campaign and even after the end of the promotion will remain “always on.” 

As the Head of Content, Amrei has been responsible for conception, production and distribution of the NIVEA Germany editorial content of the German NIVEA website, social media channels and the print magazine NIVEA FÜR MICH since 2015. In 2016, NIVEA introduced its own newsroom for continuous content production, through which Amrei and her team have managed the creation and coordination of local content across all digital NIVEA channels since that time.