Editors’ Choice Award Winner: Sampling and Promotional
Eucerin Redness Relief Product Sampler
by Beiersdorf AG
Several issues had to be addressed when it came to developing the sampler for Beiersdorf’s Eucerin Redness Relief brand. First and foremost, the company had to convey to consumers that the line—which includes a lotion, a cleanser, a night cream, and a tone-perfecting cream—is meant to be a regimen. Also, because the products were new items that addressed a specific skin condition, it was important for the company to educate customers about them. “We needed a vehicle that gave us the space to provide a lot of information,” says Susan Lewis, director of medical sales and marketing for Beiersdorf.
For the packaging, Beiersdorf chose a blister card sampler supplied by Flexpaq Corp. The Flexpaq sampler was a card with four large folding panels, printed front and back, that provided a lot of space for printed graphics. One panel was devoted to each of the regimen’s three steps. Each panel featured a blister (which was slid between the card’s walls into die-cut holes), descriptions of the product, and directions for use. Separate panels listed the products’ ingredients and featured literature about how the products work. As a bonus, a coupon for the retail products was included.
Flexpaq thermoformed the custom blisters with peel-back foil lids. One blister included a doe-foot applicator, which Flexpaq also provided. The supplier also produced the card and did the contract filling.
One challenge for Beiersdorf was ensuring the sampler was compatible with the new product formulations. “It’s always more difficult when it’s a new product, rather than one that’s been in the marketplace already, because you just don’t know how it’s going to react to the packaging,” says Lewis.
Jim Gabilanes, Flexpaq’s vice president of sales, agrees. “It was a challenge to coordinate and test the four different products with different structures to determine what worked with what.”
The sampler also listed all of the retail outlets where the products are sold. “For the first time, we went with a drugstore-only distribution strategy,” says Lewis. “The products aren’t available in Wal-Mart and some other stores where our other products are available, so it was important to communicate to customers exactly where they could find the products.”
The samples were also available in dermatologists’ offices. To make the samples easy to display, they were shipped to all dermatologists’ offices and stores in a display unit that could be assembled to sit on a shelf.
As for the look of the sampler, Lewis says that it adhered to Beiersdorf’s brand image. “Eucerin is a very therapeutic brand, and its products address dermatological conditions. So the look needed to communicate that it is not a cosmetic product but more of a medicaloriented product. That’s our brand’s look,” she says. Awards panelist Henry Renella, vice president of package development for The Estée Lauder Companies, says, “A package like this always reminds me of a pharmaceutical package. It’s very clean, but definitely more on the medical side than the cosmetic side.”
This all-in-one sampler was an effective way to inform consumers about the new brand and to encourage them to purchase. “I think in the world of skin care, there are so many options for consumers that they benefit from being able to try the products before they actually go out and spend the money to purchase them. This is especially important for new products,” says Lewis. “We always try to make sampling a very big part of our effort in order to expose people to new products.”