These Lollies Are About to Go Pop

How much would it cost to have Britney Spears promote your business this Christmas? $250,000? $25 million?

Would it be worth more to you than a 25-cent lollipop?

Pepsi may have paid the 20-year-old diva untold millions to endorse its cola (even though fans say that her real drink of choice is Coca-Cola). But when Chupa Chups, the world's largest maker of lollipops, decided to go after a new generation of customers, TV footage of Britney licking its lollipop cost the Spanish firm next to nothing. It's just one small piece of an ongoing campaign that the 45-year-old company has embraced in an attempt to establish Chupa Chups as the world's brand for lollipops. The company is using smart, creative business techniques that resemble the methods of such established players as Nike, Starbucks, and Swatch. Chupa Chups has taken its fun and flavorful treat to the world market -- and now hopes to snag fans beyond just kids -- to make suckers of us all. Its program: a delicious combination of savvy product placement, fresh marketing ideas, new flavors, and -- coming soon -- its own line of retail boutiques.

Nike, for example, may have written the book on celebrity advertising, with photos of star athletes wearing swoosh-showing shoes visible on the covers of sports magazines. But Chupa Chups does it better -- and cheaper. Deploying guerrilla maneuvers to win "subliminal" endorsements at film premieres, music awards, and fashion shows, the family-owned Catalan confectioner makes sure that pop princesses, movie stars, and sports icons always have a Chupa Chups to suck once the cameras start rolling.

The list of nonendorser endorsers is as extensive as it is impressive: Madonna, Giorgio Armani, Brandy, Elton John, Sheryl Crow, Magic Johnson, Jerry Seinfeld, Gerard Depardieu -- each one has been recorded as a Chupa Chups "celebrity sucker."

It's 100% unofficial, under-the-radar opportunism, admits licensing director Marta Bernat, a daughter of Chupa Chups founder Enric Bernat, at the company's headquarters in Barcelona, Spain. "Of course, we can't use the photographs in our own advertising," she says. "We simply invite celebrities to try our products, and if the media want to take their photograph, we're not going to stop them."

On Beyond Children
Chupa Chups may be a small-sized pop, but the company intends to make a big global bang. It already makes 4 billion lollipops a year, selling 40 flavors in 170 countries. But compared to such chocolate giants as Hershey Foods Corp., Mars Inc., and Nestlé, Chupa Chups, with its quirky Salvador Dali - inspired logo, is just a little lolly in the global candy jar. And while Chupa Chups are being devoured by sugar-hungry kids in emerging markets, big markets such as the United States, Europe, Japan, and Australia are running out of children.

So Chupa Chups is carving out a new market among teenagers and young adults for its candy on a clear plastic stick. The company created an international task force, dubbed "4C," for Chupa Chups' Corporate Communications, to raise brand awareness among these fashion-conscious, media-savvy consumers. But rather than shell out big money for big-name endorsers, Chupa Chups has adopted a tactic that worked first on the soccer field.

When he learned that Johan Cruyff, then coach of Barcelona's soccer team, was trying to quit smoking, an eagle-eyed 4C sports fan generously sent him a complimentary box of Chupa Chups. Chupa's pitch fit the soccer pitch: For the rest of the season, Cruyff was rarely seen on the sideline without a lollipop in his mouth. 4C executives watched Chupa Chups sales in soccer-crazy Catalonia double that year.

The company scored similar one-off coups with the World Cup - winning French team and Russian cosmonauts on the MIR Space station (first lollipop in outer space!) before launching itself into the orbit of premieres and awards ceremonies. September? It must be time for the Venice Film Festival. February? It's the Grammys. October? The Milan fashion show, of course. When the A-list stars come out, scantily clad "Chupa Chicks," often wearing little more than a lollipop-studded bra, are there to meet them.

The campaign is perfect for Chupa Chups, says Xavier Bernat, its chairman. "If you eat a piece of chewing gum, you hide it in your mouth, but there's no hiding a lollipop," he says. And it works, he reckons, because young consumers are smart enough to know when their heroes are acting naturally -- and when they're pushing a product because of a sponsorship deal.

The Sweet Taste of Success
The strategy is proving to be a sweet success -- at least in Europe, where more than 50% of Chupa Chups consumers are now over the age of 11, as compared to 20% just a decade ago.