Nivea Crème’s performance as a core product is key to owner Beiersdorf’s fortunes, and qualitative testing of an updated, more progressive brand strategy is designed to find new growth among younger audiences unfamiliar with the product.
Though the brand’s perception of effectiveness is decent, Nivea falls down on key attributes driving growth in the category including trendiness, natural ingredients and luxury image.
To solve this problem, it sought to test out its potential communication strategies among audiences. (For more, read WARC’s in-depth report: The calculus of Nivea’s strategy update)
Working with Kantar, represented by Edvin Babic, a Senior Director at Kantar Qualitative, to test potential big ideas for Nivea’s future positioning, the three (unlisted) contenders were assessed based on the following:
- Does it speak to a human truth?
- Is it different and new (disruptive)?
- Will it “stretch the brand” (take it forward)?
- Does it transcend cultural boundaries? (will the same creative do for different markets?)
Usually, Babic noted, strategic tests tend toward visual-first testing, but the images “were not the important thing at this stage”, he said. This was, after all, the development of a global platform whose execution would take place at a local level. “They needed a solid common ground.”
“What we’ve seen is that after testing three different big ideas in a qualitative way … being a friend, being somebody who’s honest and always there for you, that was something that really worked in this case.”
“In total, more than 80 assets have been developed based on this one very promising big idea,” Voigt reported. So far, results have been promising now that the ad is out in the field; it has performed well in GFK copy testing, and has demonstrated high Google engagement rates.
Sourced from WARC
