Nivea has built its brand on scientific, functional credentials that build trust over years, but had stopped romancing its buyers. As a result, Nivea’s market-leading, legacy brand had secured its place in the minds of core buyers in Saudi Arabia, with high scores on rational indexes like trust and skin expertise.

And yet, they were failing to make an impression on the hearts of new and future buyers, lacking in emotional differentiation on key emotional indexes like “makes me feel good” and “achieving healthy beautiful skin.”

We needed to find an uncharted territory in Saudi Arabia where we could create meaningful connections with our target audience and take Nivea's caring ethos to new levels.

Our objectives were to increase brand consideration, purchase, and brand buzz.

We wanted to win the hearts and minds of Saudi women aged 16-24.

NIVEA has long cared for women’s skin, but to truly connect to the youth in Saudi Arabia, we took its care to a deeper level.

Saudi is home to 12 million girl gamers, and unfortunately 9 out of 10 of these girl gamers have faced destructive harassment.

Saudi girl gamers often have to hide behind male usernames, male avatars, and male skins.

We persuaded NIVEA to venture into the gaming world and show its care for Saudi gamer girls’...skins.

With GIRLS GOT GAME we would create safe spaces for Saudi women to evolve their skills and finally game free from harassment and abuse.

We would champion and facilitate protection from judgement; multiplying their enjoyment by removing barriers and creating even more spaces for girls to experience the human touch of friendship.

NIVEA needed to reach women aged 16-24yr on key social media channels to increase top of mind awareness (creating a higher % of positive conversation and engagement levels with the brand)

And NIVEA needed to improve relevance by uplifting brand perception and affinity with women aged 16-24, beating the historical benchmark creating improvement on consideration and intent to purchase post-campaign.

Young Saudi women are difficult to reach, but Nivea found an untapped territory through gaming.

Through research, we identified two types of girl gamers: advanced and social (girl gamer gangs).

Our focus was on the latter, who prefer to play in groups and prioritize fun over competition.

These social gamers form tight-knit bonds while playing, and we saw this as an opportunity to connect with them and help them enhance their community experience.

We then identified a major tension point amongst this community: destructive online harassment.

NIVEA partnered with Saudi’s top online games and launched GIRLS GOT GAME.

Exclusive, girl-only maps were created on games such as Fortnite and League of Legends. The codes to access these maps were made only accessible to Saudi girl gamers for one month.

The safe maps allowed the gamers to truly evolve their skills, free from harassment, and the girls could finally play as themselves in the skins that truly reflected them.

Then, girl gamers across the nation rallied on Twitch, Discord, and YouTube under the Girls Got Game platform where they shared words of inspiration, groundbreaking advice.

On Girls Got Game episodes, leading girl gamers would offer viewers exclusive female skins and even shared their own skincare routines, shoppable via QR code.

Girls Got Game put Nivea ON the minds of young female Saudi gamers.

• A reach of over 14 million impressions to the key demographic

• 12 million livestream viewers.

• Breaking social media engagement records, exceeding engagement benchmarks by 55%.

• 85% video completion

But it was the overwhelmingly positive comments from our girl gamer viewers that let us know Nivea was IN their hearts.

Current actual purchase volumes increased +20.8% (vs. +17.1%).

Intent to purchase increased +7.7% (vs +6.6%).

Brand uplift increased +29.2% (vs. 24.5%).

Brand consideration increased +32.7% (vs. 24.3%).

Brand Buzz increased +124.4%.

+98% positive sentiments from young Saudi women

Importantly, the campaign got the attention of Saudi Arabia, with the Next World Forum promising to expand safe spaces for Saudi female gamers.

And more female gamers stepped out into the limelight, with one of them being crowned FIFA world champion.