Measuring approximately 50 centimeters in diameter,
featuring the typical NIVEA blue colour and boasting a sturdy plastic cover, the
NIVEA ball has been a popular summer accessory for decades. NIVEA fans take it
with them to the beach and swimming pool in summer, and they roll it on the ski
slopes and ice rinks in winter.
Ingenious inventor unknown. It is known that the
NIVEA ball first appeared on German beaches in the late 1930s. However, it
wasn’t officially used by Beiersdorf as a promotional item until the early
1950s. Back then, the ball was initially distributed to children’s homes, and
it soon became extremely popular, partly because it could fit into any summer
bag, was easy to inflate, and you could play with it for hours.
International breakthrough. Beiersdorf came up
with the clever strategy of distributing the NIVEA ball as a promotional gift
with NIVEA Sun product purchases. It soon became just as much a part of
people’s holidays as summer, sun, and sand – and provided entire families with
tremendous fun. Global advertising campaigns and events gave the NIVEA Ball
global celebrity status.
For
example, in the 1960s and 1970s “NIVEA caravans” toured the international beach
resorts. All beachgoers who had a NIVEA Sun product with them were given a
ball. The NIVEA caravans attracted so many crowds that they often didn’t make
it as far as the beach.