Increasing difficulties with the production line (dating back to 1960) a decision was made on a Nordic level to terminate the production of the Dumle Lollipop. In Denmark however, the lollipop had become synonymous with childhood memories like birthdays, Fastelavn (a yearly costume event like Halloween) among other things.

We immediately saw the opportunity to create a hyperinflated “Proust-moment”: a nostalgic trip down memory lane, by staging a high strung, but super humorous, "farewell" to a piece of candy.

If we imagined and pretended that this occasion - farewell beloved lollipop – was bigger than the Super Bowl and a stateman’s funeral, Combined! ...well we figured the Press and the Danes would play along with us. And they sure did.

We staged a national Farewell Lollipop Week. A simple farewell ceremony wouldn't do - we are talking about a lollipop here: The ending of an era.

Mixed with film clips of ceremonial firing of cannons and fighter planes in parade we let beloved influencer and tv celeb Micki Cheng (former winner of the Great Danish Bakeoff) confirm the sad news to the Danes on social media following a Press Release the day before. Micki would then invite all Dumle fans to post and share their memories with the lollipop, and to join a Facebook live event on Sunday of the campaign week. The live show ended when the last Dumle Lollipop was carried away into the evening sky while a string trio was playing the music from Titanic.

Everything was over the top, and that was the point.

The campaign was designed to steal headlines and crash social media timelines by a well thought out mix of PR, Social Content and Influencers.

Key Message "For 60 years the lollipop has been a part of our culture. But now it's over"

We let the national media break the news, while we were already set up and prepared to recycle customer reactions and user generated content and feed these back to the press. The product went for sale on DBA (equivalent to Ebay), Auction Houses played along with valuation experts, etc.

The Facebook Live event was a way to implement a clear call to action in the social part of the campaign: "Join the farewell show". This way we could harvest the accumulated interest.

We had influencer Micki Cheng ready to host the event and "soften the blow" by sharing his very special recipe for a DIY caramel lollipop.

Day 1: Pitching the story to the press. It immediately got picked up as national news.

Dag 2: After a day of suspense we confirmed the news on Dumles social channels and invited all to join the national Facebook Live event ”Farewell Dumle Lollipop – Live w. Micki Cheng”

Day 3-6: Fazer joined nothing less than 7 national radio interviews where they unfolded the story of the lollipop and the products remaining on the shelves.

Day 3-6: The Danes produced their own goodbyes, shared and liked. We fed these reactions to the press.

Dag 3-6: Daily posts on Dumles channels to boost recruitment for the live show.

Dag 7: Liveevent on Facebook w. Micki Cheng: A mix of memories, users stories, competitions, recipes, co-creation of DIY lollipops and the final goodbye.

Sales of the Dumle Portfolio continuing on the shelves:

Lift in sales of 41% on avg. during 10 weeks after the campaign week.

198.806 more units sold compared to same period the year before.

PR:

Estimated coverage: +3,5 mio. Danes (+60% of population) (EB, BT, TV2, DR, Se&Hør, Radio 4, P1, P3, Helt Væk m.fl.)

25 articles

7 national radio interviews

Social and Influencer:

Reach: 1.4 mio.

Total Post engagements: 700.000

Engagement rate on Live Event: 493%

Brand Study proofed remarkable Message Recall: 71% of participants (widest possible target audience) could answer why Dumle had just been mentioned in the news.