More than a few of the folks walking the aisles of the All Candy Expo earlier this fall sported a blue tongue courtesy of Cadbury Adams new Bubblicious Ink’d gum. Touted as the first liquid-filled, tongue-painting gum, the product turns the tongue a deep shade of blue when chewed, creating an immediate sensation for the chewer and his or her immediate circle of friends.

Building on the initial success of Bubblicious Ink’d, which has been available since January, Cadbury Adams also is showcasing a new sour flavor for the line, SourMania.

For Cadbury Adams, developing such a “first” represents a key component of achieving category leadership, the type of leadership demonstrated last year with the rollout of Stride long-lasting gum. The brand was so well received by the targeted youth crowd that it quickly soared up sales charts to achieve a 5 percent share of market in its inaugural year.

At the Expo, Cadbury Adams highlighted two new Stride gum flavors, Sweet Berry and Sweet Cinnamon, which join Forever Fruit, launched this past summer.

For its Trident line, the company fuses blueberry and pomegranate flavors to create its Wild Blueberry Twist variety. At the show, the company displayed another flavor for its Trident Splash line, a citrus with blackberry flavor.

The Cadbury Adams Halls brand, which already enjoys a healthy halo, has moved even farther along the functional path with the rollout of Halls ProHealth Defense lozenges, fortified with vitamins A, C and E, plus zinc, Echinacea and a long list of more exotic-sounding ingredients such as rose hips, green tea extract, astragalus and pomegranate extract.

The idea, explains Luisa Girotto, vice president, corporate communications, is to offer a product that is not just therapeutic, but may help bolster the immune system, thus preventing illness. It’s about “proactive wellness,” Girotto says.

Text on the packaging describes Halls ProHealth Defense as a “dietary supplement” and a tag line urges potential purchasers to “Start strengthening your immune system today!”

Other new additions to the Halls line include Halls Naturals Cough Drops, which offer consumers relief in four flavors —Honey-Lemon, Chamomile, Sweet Herbal Mint, Wild Cherry and Sunshine Citrus. The Naturals line uses only 100 percent natural menthol.

Finally, the company also delivers a special treat for those who’ve traditionally downed ginger ale when feeling under the weather: A new Canada Dry Ginger Ale flavor of Halls Mentho-Lyptus throat lozenges