tesa Brand Turns 75

The birth of the tesa brand began an avalanche of product and business development activities, spawned largely by Hugo Kirchberg of the Beiersdorf Company; also known as “The Father of tesa.” Additional key milestones of the tesa brand include:

• 1940s: The first branded tesa product—“tesa®-Klebefilm”—is renamed to “tesafilm”.
• 1950s: Due to its large number of products, the Beiersdorf Company segmented its sales force into two teams: one for consumer markets; one for industrial markets.
• 1960s: The company installed tesa product displays in a variety of DIY (do it yourself) retail stores.
• 1970s: The tesa brand product line expanded to approximately 600 products. Parent company Beiersdorf segmented its business into three divisions: cosmed (cosmetics), medical, and tesa tape.
• 1980s: Beiersdorf expanded production facilities outside of Europe; opened plant in Sparta, Michigan.
• 1990s: The tesa division met requirements of the ISO 9000 quality standard.
• 2000s: tesa AG spun off from Beiersdorf, becoming an independent company. tesa introduced a major product innovation for paper and printing markets—tesa EasySplice®. tesa began solvent-free production at select plants. tesa AG became part of the Societas Europaea (SE), a European company; the company name changed to tesa SE. tesa SE joined the Global Compact—a group of international companies committed to socially and ethically responsible practices.
• 2010s: tesa developed a cleanroom production environment. tesa continues to engage emerging and expanding markets.