How NIVEA is taking crowdsourcing to the next level

The pilot project NIVEA CO-LAB was launched in July 2018 in order to establish a cooperation platform for new ideas and concepts to carry the love brand NIVEA into the digital future. The campaign, conceived as a crowdsourcing initiative, is intended to give digitally-driven consumers from UK, Korea and Brazil the opportunity to contribute their technology-based innovations and bring them to life together with industry experts. Collecting the best ideas from over 270 entries from three countries and cutting it down to six finalists surely wasn't easy, but thanks to a successful cooperation between headquarters and countries six final contestants were selected and had a full-day mentoring in their countries. They were then invited to the HQ in Hamburg to present their projects in front of a senior panel of Beiersdorfers, where three winners were selected.

"This is the first attempt to bring consumers and our brand together to shape new ideas and potential innovations," says Martin Boehm, Chief Digital Officer, about the first NIVEA CO-LAB, which gives participants the opportunity to collaborate with NIVEA and have the results produced and executed worldwide. “Good ideas can come from anywhere and only need work to be brought to life," adds Francesca Marcuzzo, Global Digital Brand Manager at NIVEA, putting the potential of the global crowdsourcing initiative in a nutshell.

The task itself was also quite interesting: digitalisation is not always helping with connecting in the real world – some of us would rather text each other instead of talking in person. But digital channels and technologies are just a tool; so the contestants were happy to take on NIVEA’s challenge and invented new ways to bring people together using existing technologies.

Today, people are often feeling disconnected and hope for a stronger presence of human touch in their lives. Representing NIVEA’s position as a love and care brand, the co-creative platform NIVEA CO-LAB shows that digital innovations are not only an enrichment in daily life, but they can also succeed in bringing together people and visions from all over the globe. Consumers were happy to have the chance to get their ideas and inputs being listened and enhanced by a love brand such as NIVEA.

The project was a great success: At the end of the day, multiple synergies were generated by establishing a cooperation between Beiersdorf HQ and countries. Crafting powerful, co-created brand activations gives the opportunity to involve the consumer, to humanize the brand and to deliver value.

Crowdsourcing can make a decisive contribution to securing the competitiveness of brands. Beiersdorf deliberately relies on input from outside, not only expanding its pool of inspiration, but also giving consumers the opportunity to participate in and contribute to new projects. The result is stronger identification while at the same time, genuine customer wishes and needs can find their way directly into the brand world. Due to the large number of participants and the international perspectives of NIVEA CO-LAB, Beiersdorf has gained access to a large number of surprising approaches in a very short space of time. In this way, insights were gained, and solutions created that would otherwise not have been accessible and from which the brand will benefit both in the short term and in the long term.