Free chocolate to celebrate the New Year

Most households were in for a sweet surprise this New Year swissinfo.ch

The New Year has begun with a sweet surprise for a majority of Swiss households - some two million chocolate bars, the gift of a manufacturer.

Although it can be seen as a huge publicity stunt, the campaign may be unique. Where else in the world would a bar of chocolate be delivered to one’s door free of charge?

And the producer has taken a low-key approach to the activity, without much advertising of the event.

“We wanted to celebrate the New Year 2002 with the Swiss chocolate lovers and we wanted to test one of our products, the wafer tablet,” explained Martin Schlatter, marketing manager of producer Lindt and Sprüngli (Switzerland), which has been in the chocolate business for more than 150 years.

“The aim is to reach as many households as possible in an efficient way and that’s why we have used the Swiss Post as a distribution channel,” he told swissinfo.

The company delivered the bars, produced in November, to 19 postal centres around the country, from which they were distributed to the regions and then to towns and villages.

“We’ve been able to reach about 85 per cent of all households with the campaign,” Schlatter explains. The cost is a company secret.

No ads – no chocolate

However, not everyone has received one of the milk chocolate bars, with their wafer and praline filling. People who have a “No Advertising Please” sticker on their mailboxes have had to go without.

This is actually the second time that Lindt and Sprüngli, based at Kilchberg, near Zurich, has launched such an operation. The company sweetened up the Swiss with a package of pralines to celebrate its 150th anniversary in 1995.

Schlatter says the campaign will prompt several thousand people to contact the company with a word of thanks. “We have installed a call centre and have already had a number of calls,” he said.

“Of course, we also hope that will prompt people to go out and buy our products over the coming weeks and months and give our business a lift,” he added.

In March, Lindt & Sprüngli reported a successful financial year in 2000, with sales much above market average and double-digit growth in operating profit.

The United States, with its two subsidiaries Lindt & Sprüngli and the Ghiradelli Chocolate Company, became the most significant market for the group in terms of sales in the year 2000.

Total net income for the group was SFr76.2 million ($46.24 million), a rise of 9.3 per cent over the previous year’s figure.

swissinfo