Beiersdorf : Let’s create together

Being online has become central to everyday life. We carry our whole world in our pocket (studies show that we find forgetting our phone as stressful as a trip to the dreaded dentist), but the rise of digital do-it-all means that even though we're more connected than ever, we're more and more disconnected from real, human interaction. 74% of people would rather text us than talk to us and 65.5% can't even go to the bathroom without scrolling through our social media.

As a company with the core value of Care at the center of everything we do, we see it as our responsibility to try and find a solution for this - not only within the company, but also for consumers. NIVEA stands for caring about people and how they feel in their skin, and we believe that now more than ever, the world needs meaningful relationships and connections.

That's why the NIVEA Co-Lab was created, to enable the very people who use our products to have a say in what we do. Beiersdorf Head of Global Digital Activation, Matt Marlow, is convinced that this approach will generate exciting new thinking: 'When it comes to creativity, we recognise that good ideas can come from anywhere. So we're reaching outside of our normal approach to creative development and are involving the very communities who use our products to tell us what we should do.'

The result should be technology-based ideas, which aim to bring people together and to enhance their relationships. In exchange, the finalists (1 from each country) will have the opportunity to work with us and one of our global digital agency partners, Cheil Worldwide, and have their work produced and executed globally. This is an opportunity to not only help bring innovative ideas to life but also a valuable experience for participants to be mentored professionally by some of the best minds in the industry. The finalists will also receive 10,000 EUROS and a trip to NIVEA HQ in Germany to present their ideas.

'For the pilot, we've carefully chosen the countries based on their reputation for creativity and technology, but also countries which are culturally different from each other so we get a broad spectrum of ideas. Based on the positive response we've received so far we're already planning to roll this initiative out across more of our markets', says Marlow.