Beiersdorf Middle East acquires over 50 per cent of the market share

They announced that for the first half year, export sales to the Middle East are 31% more than the same period last year and in market sales are also above expectations, being well above double digit growth for the year.

Egypt has displayed the strongest growth at an increase of 92% versus last year, and most markets are in double digit. Beiersdorf's new trading partners in Qatar are also showing impressive results at an increase of 24%, an impressive growth model based on previous experience with this up and coming retail market. Beiersdorf's partners are currently preparing for the new product launches in the third and fourth quarters.

Robert Taylor-Hughes, General Manager of Beiersdorf Middle East, comments: "Excellent re-sults from our regional ad campaigns have driven NIVEA Creme sales by +13% and NIVEA Soft sales by an impressive +20%, the latter being attributed to the excellent 'More Moisture campaign' created by TBWA / Raad. NIVEA Soft has further benefited from a strong below-the-line campaign in association with Wild Wadi in Dubai. These results push NIVEA core skincare business back to over 50% market share if we consider all trade channels".

NIVEA Deodorant, the leaders in personal care business, continues to stretch away from the competition and NIVEA BEAUTÉ colour cosmetics has started to crush competition in the mid-market cosmetics sector with a further year on year growth rate of 19%. The solid evidence for this is the strong consumer demand on the new MaXimpact mascara which has led to difficul-ties staying in stock.

When asked what the main difficulties of the year so far had been, Taylor-Hughes replied:

"Naturally political unrest in markets such as Lebanon has an effect on consumer confidence, fortunately many of our products fall into 'commodity' type purchases though, so we are not so affected as the luxury end. Let us hope that such confidence soon regains in Egypt too follow-ing such terrible events".

"Also they say imitation is the purest form of flattery". Conversely, Unilever with its Dove brand has been running negative comparative advertising campaigns against NIVEA. You cannot undo 100 years of trust and innovation in a brand simply by putting your product in a blue & white jar and using underhand tactics. In Europe we have several injunctions in place stopping Dove from making untrue claims about the performance of their brand, unfairly misleading con-sumers. This is a highly creative industry and I would expect better from such a well known company." He adds.

When asked about the high points of the year so far, Taylor-Hughes responded. "Beiersdorf has managed to support some excellent community programs such as sponsoring school events this year". "We have also sponsored the official F1 after party in Bahrain in association with Fashion TV and NIVEA BEAUTÉ which was great fun. My sincere thanks to Promoseven for this initiative".

The biggest high point though has to be Beiersdorf's tie up with Dubai Autodrome with the for-mer's rotax RM-1 go-karting team and the sponsorship of the latter's 24 hour events. So far Beiersdorf has measured around $600k worth of media exposure from these activities and NIVEA for Men is starting to proliferate as a result in the male skincare category with innovative new products such as Oil Control.
The next 24 karting event is at the end of November.

"We are looking forward to the next six months with a strong product roll out campaign and further strong media support" Taylor-Hughes finally adds.