Cadbury's core chocolate brands will feature spotty and stripy packaging for the next 18 months as part of its £50m Spots v Stripes marketing programme for the London 2012 Olympics.

As official treat provider to the Olympics and Paralympics, Cadbury predicts its Spots v Stripes campaign which will use multimedia advertising to invite consumers to be either a Spot or a Stripe supporter could generate about £123m additional sales in confectionery over the next two years.

From mid-September, Cadbury's core range, including Dairy Milk, Crunchie, Wispa and sharing bags, will be revamped with spotty and stripy packaging to give consumers an opportunity to buy a product in the design of their chosen 'team.'

Another change on-shelf will be the limited-edition Challenge Bar (rsp: 52p), available from 23 August for approximately six weeks. The milk chocolate and white chocolate bar has three segments, divided into a spotty section, a stripy section and a "winner's middle section", which the Spot and the Stripe players must play for. Each Challenge Bar has one of 20 different games, such as 'thumb wars,' printed on the inside of the wrapper, to encourage consumers to compete for the winner's chunk.

The new bar will be supported by TV and outdoor ads later this month and Spots v Stripes PoS will also be introduced to retailers across all grocery channels from mid-September.

Customer engagement controller Gina Ayub admitted some of the PoS ideas were "ambitious" but said retailers had welcomed a more interesting look at the confectionery fixture. "You see other areas of stores having fun with PoS so why has confectionery always gone down the path of boring displays?" said Ayub. "This is an opportunity to drive unprecedented sales growth and address the flatness and lack of creativity we are sometimes accused of."

The campaign could also be an opportunity to "rewrite the rule book" in terms of category planning, added Ayub. "Working with retailers on plans so far in advance has been incredibly helpful for all parties. Their confectionery fixtures will be a key battleground in the competition between the Spots and the Stripes. We could easily run an activity like this outside of the Olympics."

Cadbury is spending £14m on advertising for the rest of 2010, kicking off the campaign tonight with a TV ad featuring marine creatures divided into Spots and Stripes playing with a seaweed ball.

People join the teams on the campaign website, which went live this week.