NIVEA has been globetrotting almost since the day we were born, thanks to a special skincare ingredient called Eucerit.
Invented by one of
NIVEA’s founding fathers, Dr Isaac Lifschütz, Eucerit made it possible for a skin cream to remain stable over time – which lead directly to the creation of
NIVEA Creme in 1911. This was the first skincare cream that could be exported around the world without losing any of its quality or consistency.
Just three years after
NIVEA Creme made its debut in Hamburg, it was available on every continent, and nearly half of
NIVEA’s sales came from overseas. By 1914, our products were produced not only in Hamburg, but also in Buenos Aires, Copenhagen, Mexico, Moscow, New York, Paris and Sydney.
At the time, this kind of rapid international expansion was unheard of in the skincare industry. We were in uncharted waters – which meant that we often had to employ a little ingenuity when introducing
NIVEA to new markets.
In South Africa, for instance, all our advertising had to appear in not one, but three languages – English, Zulu and Xhosa. In the UK, we needed to replace
NIVEA Creme’s blue tin with plastic packaging when we realised that British people associated the aluminium tins with shoe polish.
In cold countries like Austria, we emphasised our products’ ability to protect the skin from the snow, wind and rain. Meanwhile, the
NIVEA Sun range and other products more suited to hotter climates were marketed much more heavily in countries like Australia. All of these practices continue to this day.
We also made a point of creating products tailored to the skincare needs of people in different countries long before this became the norm. In the 1930s, for example, we saw that there was a huge demand in Asia for skincare products that could lighten the skin. So we created
NIVEA Whitening Paste, which was an instant success. Even now,
NIVEA products with whitening ingredients remain our biggest sellers throughout Asia.
Today,
NIVEA is one of the world’s most trusted brands. Our products are available everywhere, from the far reaches of the Australian outback to the high altitudes of the Rocky Mountains.
Yet most people in the countries in which our products are sold see
NIVEA as a local brand, which is surely the highest compliment we could ever hope to receive from our fans. We look forward to bringing
NIVEA to you and to people all over the world for the next 100 years and beyond.
