Nivea to sponsor New Year celebrations on Times Square

Friday, 31 December 2010 00:56 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

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.

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. Nivea is among a bevy of sponsors for this year’s celebration, which is produced jointly by the Times Square Alliance and Countdown Entertainment. But sponsorship is not open to just any company willing to write a check.

“We look for sponsors that can be organically integrated in our event, and there are some sponsors that we say no to because it’s not a natural fit,” said Jeffrey Straus, president of Countdown Entertainment. “This is first and foremost a civic event for New York City and sponsors have to tie into that event without it being a commercial message.” The most obvious example, of course, is the crystal ball that descends on Times Square for the countdown, which does not have a logo festooned on it but is known by even casual television viewers to be provided by Waterford Crystal. Nearly as prominent as the ball are the numerals that light up to mark the dawning year, and Duracell, the battery brand, 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 cell phones, laptops and rechargeable batteries.

When a camper who hears a rustling outside the tent reaches for a flashlight, the batteries had better work, and Bob Jacobs, Marketing Director for Duracell, a Procter & Gamble brand, said the moment when numerals light up in Times Square functions as “a large-scale analogy” for consumers.