Sugar confectionery giant Perfetti Van Melle (PVM) has reported ‘unprecedented demand’ for its new Chupa Chups customer engagement activation concept, which was unveiled to the industry at the TFWA World Exhibition & Conference in Cannes.

PVM plans to tour the new concept at a number of airports around the world, with its debut likely to be in Europe at the beginning of 2023, over a two-month period.

The concept was designed to help increase consumer engagement on the duty free shop floor, and to underscore Chupa Chups’ focus on fun.

“We have been pleasantly surprised by the overwhelmingly positive reactions from our travel retail partners – everyone is keen to have our Chupa Chups engagement kiosk installed,” said PVM Brand Manager, GTR Femke van Veen.

“We are talking to several key customers at major airport locations about running the activation – some people are asking for just a digital version as well as the hard copy photo option that travellers get to take away.

“We are currently making some tough decisions about where the kiosk will travel to in 2023; we are also looking at building another kiosk so that we can double up on the schedule for next year.”

The Chupa Chups travel retail activation kiosk concept includes a photo booth and product promotion area to encourage customers to engage with the Chupa Chups brand.

Passersby can have their photo taken as one of the characters in the Chupa Chups backpack animal family, take away an instant print memento, and receive the digital photo using a QR code.

The life-sized Chupa Chups tiger mascot was also a hit at the industry show.

“We’ve had lots of requests for the mascot to be present as part of the kiosk activation at airports,” said van Veen.

“Chupa Chups is aggressively targeting expansion in our key travel retail markets of EMEA, Asia-Pacific, Middle East and the Americas.

“We are keen to grow the brand in high traffic passenger locations and at till points – and we know customer engagement is a vital tool to achieve brand visibility. We want to be front and centre at airports and on the duty-free shop floor.”