Case Study Nivea

Case Study 8 NIVEA NIVEA, one of the largest skin and face care filths in the world, was established in 1912 and introduced to the German food market places. Germany has long been a center for skin care and cosmetics, and NIVEA was the leader and has continued to be one of the most recognized ingatherings in the market. With its brand hear based on its increases being clean, fresh, and natural it has become a timeless product recognized by its blue tin and white type face.Its premiere introduced NIVEA Creme in 1912, and became the base of their brand and was known as the caretaker of skin. For most of the lifespan of NIVEA Creme it was essentially the sole challenger in the face cream market, and so the consumers were able to get to know the brand and develop a close relationship to the brand. It did not face competition until 1960 when another German company launched Creme 21. Although it was an identical product to NIVEAs Creme, Creme 21 was backed by a large amount of ad vertising aimed at the mass market.It is through this competition that NIVEA was forced to evaluate their business organisation strategy and brand image. While they were happy that their brand image was recognized and understood by the market, they were shown how their brand had an older image and was not viewed as young, dynamic, and recent like the new competitors were. NIVEAs decades of branding and assimilation into the everyday lives of its consumers had built the equity for them that allowed them to maintain the market advantage for as long as they have.It is this brand equity they had built over so many decades that had allowed them to adjust their branding strategy. Though sales of NIVEA Creme had become stagnant, the company developed a strategy which was soprano and allowed for stabilizing the market position of NIVEA and expands the strength of NIVEA Creme by transferring its brand equity to other product classes. NIVEA sine qua noned to preserve their reputation for skin care and the market position for NIVEA Creme spot it was also contrastiveiating it from the competition.To do this they realized that while most ads showed NIVEA products being used, they had never directly specified the products benefits. By addressing these product benefits they are negating the competitors claims. The second portion of this plan was to introduce new products. They targeted new and growing market segments in which they could extend the NIVEA brand. They wanted to use these to compliment and lead the meaning of the NIVEA brand name and use the equity already gained by NIVEA Creme.This theme is carried through the brand hierarchy as well. A set of septenary different criteria was set to ensure that all products reflected the desired NIVEA brand image and were consistent with the philosophy of providing high quality skin care products. NIVEA Creme was considered the companys most important product because it established the brand and its identity. Sub-brands have the advantage of advertising the mother brand, establishing brand loyalty across multiple segments, and monopolize the market from competitors.The problem with sub-brands is that they ignore have a negative impact or take away from the sales of the mother brand. The role of the sub-brands was to continue to cater to particular skin care and personal care needs of their target market segments and contribute back their particular product class associations to reinforce and elaborate on the image of NIVEA as a skin care specialist. With this direction NIVEA should operate under an umbrella ad for all of their products.An umbrella brand essentially covers diverse products which are more or less related to each other, and with NIVEAs small advertising budget, this would be the best way to maximize their marketing efforts with different product categories all carrying the NIVEA brand name. The umbrella strategy also fits in with the NIVEA Creme advertising because with their valu es of timeless, ageless, motherhood and happy family honesty and trustworthiness and the product benefits of benevolence and quality they can transfer all of these core brand qualities through the NIVEA name to its sub-brands.The problem that NIVEA had was that all of their sub-brands were being handled as separate advertising plans, while they all were in line with the core values they did no thing to incorporate each of their branding strategies together. By using the umbrella branding strategy they can bring all of their products under one name and make a more cohesive branding strategy that will benefit all of their sub-categories.One thing that I believe is holding the NIVEA brand back is that they are so focused on not losing touch with the original product of NIVEA Creme, when really they want to hold onto the core values which came with it. I believe they need to look at the market strategy and implement the core values that were derived from this original product but also look at the market and see if they are still being successful. If not, then they need to re-evaluate NIVEA Cremes placement in the market and see whether or not it should be dropped or downgraded in their grand scheme market and advertising strategies.