The iconic German chocolate specialist Ritter Sport has partnered with Dufry and Zürich Airport for a month-long Colourful World of Chocolate activation centered on its lovable sloth mascot Don Choco.
Taking place during June, the #DiscoverRitterSport promotion has been designed to build awareness of Ritter Sport’s 30-year-plus sustainable brand ethos and highlight the superior quality of its Travel Retail Exclusives range using touchless elements that are both educational and entertaining.
The promotion area is divided into two key parts: sustainability and taste.
The eye-catching centerpiece is a cocoa tree complete with fruit, symbolizing Ritter Sport’s sustainability credentials with infotainment content that aims to tell the brand’s recent carbon neutral certification journey (awarded in 2020). The cocoa tree acts a symbol for the sustainability, which Ritter Sport stands for and maintains through its own Nicaraguan cocoa farm El Cacao, which the company has owned since 2012.
Integrated digital screens promote Ritter Sport’s steps towards carbon neutrality via the "incredible journey of Don Choco" with QR codes and links to further online information. Ritter Sport Travel Retail wants to highlight the brand’s carbon neutral ethos, as it is the most relevant in terms of sustainability for a global consumer and travel shopper audience, particularly in the context of air travel. (This was also highlighted in the recently published m1nd-set sustainability study, which found that carbon neutrality is one of the main brand advocacy drivers for travelers.)
Ritter Sport Marketing Manager Travel Retail Kerstin Krüger said: “At Ritter Sport we have a lot to say about our colorful, tasty chocolate and sustainability efforts for over 30 years, so an airport promotion was the logical addition to bring the brand’s purpose to life at retail POS. Using our cute sloth mascot and brand ambassador Don Choco as the central character for the promotion enables us to draw attention to the story behind our cocoa farm at El Cacao in Nicaragua.”
Don Choco’s home in a tree is a centerpiece for the airport retail promotion with elements of education as well as entertainment and emotion. He is a core part of the activation; his presence telegraphs how El Cacao's biodiversity*, with more than 1.200ha of forest and wetland, provides a home for sloths as well as many other animals and planting cacao in the agroforestry systems.
The second key element is to help promote the "Taste colorful Ritter Sport chocolate" campaign messaging, following the successful design and packaging relaunch of its Travel Retail Exclusives range in 2021, moving towards a more colorful and sustainable appearance.
The company’s unique chocolate sampling machine attracts consumers with the slogan "What’s Your Flavour?" and offers travelers the opportunity to sample and taste Ritter’s delicious chocolate using a touchless mechanic. By simply answering a few onscreen questions from Don Choco via their mobile device, the traveler receives their preferred chocolate from the touchless vending mechanic.
Philippe Moryl, global category head of confectionery for Dufry, added: ““We are thrilled to bring such a fun and informative shopping experience to our customers at Zurich Airport. This promotional activity perfectly reflects our own ambitions and the standards we want to set with regard to customer engagement. We encourage our brand partners to develop creative ways such as this to help promote their brands and products and to also accompany our customers along their journey, using the different digital touchpoints we have both on and off site. Based on initial customer feedback we are looking forward to continuing to develop comprehensive campaigns such as these with our local and global brand partners. I would like to sincerely thank both the Ritter Sport and the Zurich Airport teams for their support and commitment to help make this creative promotion happen.”
The ‘#DiscoverRitterSport meet Don Choco and taste our chocolate in full color’ promotion has been designed with Bluedog Promotions and following the four-week promotion in Zürich airport will move to Frankfurt Airport, Non-Schengen in partnership with Frankfurt Media/ FFM Airport during August.
The promotion periods at the airports are supplemented by additional communication at the airports – coloramas, digital e-flight panels and by price offers in different shops.
Ritter Sport Managing Director Travel Retail Jan Pasold concluded: “This is a significant investment for Ritter Sport and we have worked very hard to bring together the key elements that the company stands for, notably the 30 years of sustainability that is embedded within the DNA of our brand and the quality of our chocolate, which uses only the very best ingredients. While we are rolling out the activation in two key airports during 2022, our plan is to have 2-3 other key locations for the concept in 2023, as we want to use this concept exclusively for the particular month in a specific location.”
