TakeAway: Surely there is no moment when more Americans lock lips than at midnight on Dec. 31, when a kiss marks the New Year, and that is why Nivea Lip Care ties its biggest marketing effort of the year to New Year’s Eve.
Nivea is a natural fit as a sponsor, just as Waterford Crystal is for the crystal ball that descends on Times Square for the countdown.
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Excerpted from NYTimes, “For New Year’s Eve, the Tie-Ins Erupt” By Andrew Adam Newman, December 13, 2010
For the third consecutive year, Nivea is an official sponsor of the New Year’s Eve celebration in Times Square, and along with sponsoring a stage called the Nivea Kiss Platform, it will hand out about 30,000 samples of lip balm to revelers in the hours before the countdown.
“The brand is based on the insight that something wonderful happens when skin touches skin and humans connect, and the New Year’s Eve kiss sets the tone for the new year to come,” said Magnus Jonsson, vice president for marketing at Beiersdorf, parent company for Nivea.
This year, Nivea also is holding a contest on its Facebook page where couples in long-distance relationships vie for a chance to win a free trip to New York to be reunited in Times Square on New Year’s, with two couples who garner the most votes on Facebook winning.
Nearly as prominent as the ball are the numerals that light up to mark the dawning year, and Duracell is hoping to become similarly synonymous. For the third consecutive November, the brand set up what it calls the Duracell Power Lab in Times Square, which consists of four stationary bikes that when pedaled charge batteries that will subsequently be used to light the sign. This year the bikes are housed in a trailer that for the rest of the year will be deployed to disaster areas, where it will provide charging stations for items including cellphones, laptops, and rechargeable batteries. “We talk a lot about people trusting Duracell when it just has to work,” said its marketing director. When the numerals light up, “it’s that one iconic moment of the holiday season when millions of people are watching and it’s a great association for Duracell batteries being trusted in an important moment.”
The Times Square Alliance estimates that one million people attend the New Year’s Eve festivities. A Trylon Strategic Media Relations study commissioned by the group pegged the international audience at more than one billion.
Edit by AMW
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Full Article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/14/business/media/14adco.html?ref=media
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