design agency bulletproof was inspired by the work of an upandcoming british fashio designer for a new limited edition pack for beiersdorf&rsquos moisturiser. josh brooks finds out how the project came to lifethe brief to create shelf impact and attract young women to try the nivea soft product with a limited edition pack featuring work by fashion designer nicola de mainclient beiersdorfbrand nivea softdesign bulletproofuk launch date may 2012with the raft of packs hitting shelves to celebrate the olympics , the queen&rsquos diamond jubilee and the summer&rsquos host of sporting and cultural events, limited edition packs are in the headlines.but away from the union jacks, bunting and london caricatures, a number of brands are bringing out striking and impactful limited editions that, they hope, will give them precious stand out and pull in a new group of consumers.moisturiser nivea soft, owned by beiersdorf, is one of those. next month, it will launch a new limited edition created by the london branding agency bulletproof and featuring motifs by a young british fashion designer.the pack follows a tradition of fashion designers collaborating on pack designs paul smith has created bottles for evian and karl lagerfeld has created cans for diet coke, to name just two.nivea soft has been creating limited edition packs since 2007 and, last year, chose the upandcoming designer nicola de main to give a theme to its 2012 special edition packs.sophie myers, brand manager for body care at beiersdorf, who runs nivea soft in the uk, says &ldquonicola has grown up using the product and loves it. she designs for the high street as well as the catwalk and she believes fashion should be fun, so her outlook is a perfect match for us.&rdquo myers explains that the aim of the three packs in the limited edition, which were first unveiled at london fashion week in february, is attract women in the 2025 age group &ndash who are &ldquoin the first steps oftheir skincare journey&rdquo and younger than the typical nivea soft consumer &ndash to try the brand for the first time.bulletproof was appointed to the project by the nivea global team in may 2011 and led the project to choose which designer should be involved in the collaboration.kellie chapple, client services director at the agency, says &ldquoinitially we thought it would be quite a challenge to find an upand coming fashion designer to work with us on the range. but then we found nicola de main, whose designs were the perfect fit with the brand.&ldquonicola&rsquos patterns, together with her love of symmetry, nature, freedom and movement gave us lots of inspiration and ideas when designing the packs.&rdquo from a format point of view, the nicola de main pack required a shrink sleeve to give the full 360degree design &ndash normally, nivea soft packs carry a selfadhesive label.initial reactions to the packs have been positive, myers says. &ldquoalthough we haven&rsquot yet launched, we&rsquove had amazing feedback. everyone thinks it&rsquos very feminine, which is good &ndash sometimes when you want to go bold, that can be hard to achieve.&rdquo the project also shines a light on the potential for pack designs to create a story around a brand without going for a big abovetheline marketing campaign.myers says &ldquowe are a brand with smaller budgets and it&rsquos harder to do, say, tv activity. the packs give the brand some new news and add presence and stand out for us. we definitely see a sales uplift when we bring out limited editions.&rdquo an added bonus from a uk perspective, myers says, is that nicola de main is the first british designer to be chosen to create a limited edition for nivea soft previous packs were designed, in 2009, by the indian designer manish arora and in 2011 by the catalan spaniard josep font.so even if it&rsquos not covered in red, white and blue, perhaps the range does fit into the allthingsbritish trend for limited editions after all.