Franklin, Wis. ? For nearly 70 years, loyal, chapped-lipped users have dabbed on Carmex lip balm from its classic yellow package. Customer devotion made it the third-largest selling lip balm in the country despite a lack of advertising, sales campaigns or product updates.

Now, the little yellow-capped jars found next to cash registers of nearly every pharmacy and convenience store are going Madison Avenue. The family-run Carma Laboratories Inc. has hired a new sales manager – a former employee of rival Blistex – to oversee the company’s sales and growth. Carmex has started advertising, is launching new lines and even adding flavors such as cherry and strawberry in the fall.

Paul Woelbing, Carma Labs’ controller and grandson of product founder Alfred Woelbing, said after so many years it’s finally time to give the company a face.

“We’ve had our own little world where we come in, make Carmex and ship it out every day. But we have not gone out to meet the buyers,” said Woelbing, who works with father, Don, the company’s president, and brother Eric, the vice president.

Paul Woelbing and other company officials plan to meet officials from retailers who already carry the product, such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Target Corp. and CVS Corp., and find out from consumers what they want in a lip balm. But Carma Labs still will be the laid-back, cool-as-menthol business it has always been, he said.

Workers package units of Carmex at Carma Laboratories Inc. in Franklin, Wis. Carma Laboratories has been offering Carmex lip balm since 1937, selling millions of units a year without any marketing or sales operations until this year when the company hired a salesman.

And the trademark yellow packaging? That’s not going anywhere.

“People sort of think it’s like blue jeans or something else,” Paul Woelbing said. “It’s almost like an iconic product.”

Still, the company is evolving. Its first ad campaign this winter took Carmex officials to New York and Chicago, where they hung billboards, handed out magnets and blitzed areas with posters proclaiming: “It tingles” and “It heals.” More campaigns will follow, they say.

The most obvious change will be the new flavors. Competitors ChapStick and Blistex have had flavors for years and even expanded their offerings, while Carmex for the most part has stayed the same. It began offering a mint variety of its Clickstick in 2002 and that’s been slow to sell, Woelbing said.

This fall, the makers plan to roll out two new flavors, most likely cherry and a berry variety, such as strawberry. More flavors, like licorice, bubble gum, watermelon and mocha, will be released the following year. Other possible changes include developing lines of premium and all-natural products, Woelbing said.

The company expects to sell 65 million units this year, with the jar-form of the balm outselling the other varieties.

Carmex is sold in about a dozen countries abroad, including Spain, Hungary, and Australia. Management hopes to expand to China and Japan in the future, Woelbing said.