To mark Nivea's centennial anniversary, the beauty brand recently unveiled a pop-up store in a temporarily vacant space on Queen Street West. Some 45 members of the media previewed the space on March 16 at a celebratory cocktail party.
The store, open March 18 through April 5, offers customers interactive skin tests and a consultation with a Nivea expert to determine their skin type and receive a personalized skin care regimen. Additionally, a photographer is on hand each day to take playful, retro-style glamour shots of guests. Nivea leveraged the retro appeal of the anniversary in the decor, using well-known advertising campaigns from the past century .
"Since this is a milestone anniversary for Nivea, we wanted the brand to be front and centre at the event," said Carole Rissmann, director of marketing for Beiersdorf Canada, Nivea's parent company.
To that end, the space is dressed in the brand's signature blue and decorated with vintage Nivea ads, as well as product displays containing both archival and new products.
At the preview cocktail party, passed hors d'oeuvres were served in oversize Nivea-themed tins, and Love & Sugar Bakeshop designed a two-tier cake adorned with images from both retro and modern Nivea ad campaigns, along with an edible replica of the classic Nivea Creme tin.
Just getting the space together was a relief for planners, who faced the short timeline that comes with working in a pop-up space.
"We worked with an incredibly tight timeline to pull all of the elements of the Nivea Haus together," Rissmann said. "We signed the lease on the space in mid-February, which only gave us a few weeks to develop the pop-up centre to coincide with the 100th anniversary."
