Globrands developed the name Flippo on behalf of Smiths [now called Lay’s] and FHV/BBDO. Kern, Habbema & Yap made the successful introduction campaign. The Flippos spread all over The Netherlands and became the biggest trading cards success ever.
The story
It all started in 1927 when the Haleakala Dairy in Maui, Hawaii, brought a new type of fruit juice on the market. The cap of every bottle was covered with a round cardboard image. Despite the sunshine, beautiful beaches and as many free coconut’s as you wanted, the economy was suffering in Hawaii. The big recession caused thousands of people to get fired. Parents had no money for toys anymore, which meant that these kids had to think of something on their own.
One day, one of these kids played with a cap of a fruit juice bottle, which caused another kid to join him. From there on, they started savings these bottlecaps. A new game was born, completely invented by these children themselves. These caps quickly turned into being called POGs, which is derived from the ingredients ‘Passion fruit, Orange and Guava’. The children drew dolls and other images on these caps and made special versions such as the ‘kinis’ (Hawaiian for king), which had a bigger worth and consisted of 3 stuck together POG’s.
These caps became a hype, which, after a few years, went out. However, after a few years, a female teacher ‘Blossom Galbiso’ remembered the game which she played as a child and decided to teach this to the children in her class as well. These children thought this game was amazing, which caused them to tell this to all of their friends, other schools and eventually, for history to repeat itself. The whole of Hawaii played with POG’s again and the rage became bigger than ever. It even has been said that Hawaiian children owned 1700 POG’s on average in 1992. Tourists took the POG’s with them, which resulted in a hype in America in 1993. First, California took over, from where every state got won over and ultimately, the whole of America was playing with POG’s.
Eventually, all sorts of editions came to the market from different manufacturers to meet the big demand. At the beginning of 1995, the POG’s came to Europe. They started in England, where the caps got added on Walkers (chips) under the name of Tazos. Shortly after this, Walker’s Dutch daughter company ‘Smiths’ came with an own edition.