The story
The name Tesa was coined in 1906 by Elsa Tesmer, who worked as a clerk and later head of the typing pool at Beiersdorf until her marriage in 1908. She formed the term "Tesa" from the first two letters of her surname and the last two letters of her first name in a brand name competition.
The company initially manufactured toothpaste tubes, and the newly chosen name was therefore used for the patented tube of the toothpaste "Pebeco" developed by Beiersdorf. The tube business was not very successful, and for this reason, in 1926 the brand name was assigned to a newly developed product. The company gave its name to a novel dipping compound for coating sausages, but this product also remained largely unsuccessful.
In 1935, Beiersdorf AG developed a transparent adhesive film, which was initially marketed under the name Beiersdorf Rubber Adhesive Film and sold only modestly well. Beiersdorf employee Hugo Kirchberg therefore came up with the idea of naming the product "TESA." Kirchberg first referred to "tesa adhesive film" in a letter in 1936.
The introduction of Tesa as the umbrella name for all adhesive tapes produced by Beiersdorf significantly increased the brand's importance in the company from 1941 onwards. Today, there are approximately 7,000 different Tesa products. In 2001, Tesa SE was spun off from Beiersdorf AG as an independent company (then as the public limited company Tesa AG). Annual sales in 2014 came to over a billion euros.
The main plant in Hamburg primarily manufactures products for the automotive and electrical industries. Tesa tape and other consumer products are produced at the Tesa plant in Offenburg.
In Austria, the company took over the TIXO brand from the former manufacturer Kores, a brand name that enjoys just as much recognition in Austria as Tesa does in Germany.
Since March 30, 2009, the company has operated as Tesa SE, meaning a European company. In 2011, with the approval of patches that can deliver medicinal substances to the body through the skin, the company entered the pharmaceutical market.
In October 2015, Tesa relocated its headquarters from Hamburg to Norderstedt-Garstedt, to the Nettelkrögen industrial park.
From Wikipedia’s article on Tesa SE, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4