The company wanted a carton that portrayed a luxurious look to capture consumer attention on the crowded beauty products store shelf. Although Beiersdorf traditionally relied on a European paperboard supplier for its packaging needs, the short turnaround time for rolling out the new Nivea packaging demanded a more readily available, comparable board source to keep production on schedule.
Kristin Schlegel-Moore, secondary packaging buyer for Beiersdorf, comments, “Our products are sold in high-end drug chains as well as Target, Wal-Mart, Walgreen’s, CVS, and other mass merchandisers. It was essential that the exterior packaging capture the consumer’s eye amid a sea of competitors and drive purchase intent at the point of sale.”
To achieve its time and quality objectives, Beiersdorf enlisted the services of converter Curtis Packaging Corp. In turn, Curtis Packaging recommended MeadWestvaco, producers of the “Crescendo” line of premium coated paperboard, as the substrate supplier. Don Droppo, vp of marketing for Curtis Packaging, says, “Crescendo is a top-tier, cosmetic-quality paperboard that is very smooth and extremely bright. It not only prints beautifully, but also hot-stamps and converts very well. It’s also a U.S.-made stock, so we can get it quickly, which is important because we all know emergencies happen.”
Beiersdorf’s carton design concept incorporated blue and white pearlescent coating and silver hot stamping to create an elegant, sparkling appearance. “Color reproduction is an important consideration for us,” notes Schlegel-Moore. “It is also important that there be no cracking along the score lines, no haze or discoloration.”
A test run using Crescendo convinced Schlegel-Moore to approve it for the complete run. The 18.5-pt Crescendo paperboard was able to accommodate the specific Nivea coating and stamping criteria and yield a package with the required high-quality sheen and bright white lettering. And the new packaging got to market within Beiersdorf’s desired time frame. Curtis Packaging turned around production on the Renewal Night Crème carton within four weeks from receipt of the artwork. —Judy Rice
