Dutch Cup fever turns into wuppie mania

Dutch Cup fever turns into wuppie mania
(Reuters)
Updated: 2006-06-22 09:25

Wuppies, little tufts of synthetic orange fur with eyes, are becoming a national craze with Dutch backing for their World Cup team reaching fever pitch.

The supermarket chain Albert Heijn launched a campaign two weeks ago to support the country's soccer heroes and said they had run out of 16 million wuppies in two weeks after giving them to customers who spent more than 15 euros (US$18.94) on groceries.

An element of the campaign included changing the name of the traditional song chanted by Dutch soccer fans from 'Hup Holland Hup' (go Holland go) into 'Wup Holland Wup'.

"Part of the success is the parents of today were the kids who bought the wuppies 25 years ago," said a spokeswoman for the supermarket chain.

A larger version of the wuppie, the 'mega wuppie', has also been snapped up.

The chain quickly ran out of mega wuppies, which are now being traded on eBay for as much as 28 euros, about four times their original price.

A woman was fined 130 euros this week for having four on her car dashboard. Police said the wuppies were a hazard because they blocked her view, Dutch NOS news reported.

taken from : http://chinadaily.com.cn/sports/2006-06/22/content_623235.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuppie :
In June 2006 the Dutch supermarket chain Albert Heijn reintroduced the Wuppies in a new campaign connected to the Soccer World Cup 2006 under the motto Wup Holland Wup, a variation of Hup Holland Hup (Go Holland Go), a Dutch patriotic song). They are used as a kind of saving stamp. A customer receives one Wuppie for each 15 euros spent at an Albert Heijn store. There are orange, red, blue and white Wuppies (orange being the national Dutch colour and red, white and blue the colours of the Dutch flag). Each Wuppie comes with a saving stamp and three saving stamps can be exchanged together with 2,49 euros for one Mega Wup. Albert Heijn's Wuppie campaign with the World Cup Wuppie Song (With a Wup we will win the World Cup) proved to be immensely popular. On June 16th the Mega Wups were virtually sold out.