For the Infected and their Infectors. About Brand Infection.

Chupa Chups

Industry: Candy
http://www.chupachupsgroup.com

In the early 1950s, Bernat worked for an apple jam factory. As he introduced later his idea of lollipops to the investors, they left. Bernat took over the company in 1958 and renamed it to Chupa Chups. He constructed the machines and sold a striped bonbon on a wooden stick for one peseta each. Bernat got the idea of a "bonbon with a stick" from a cursing mother as her child got sticky hands from melting sweets that it wiped off on the cloth. He came up with his lollipop idea as he thought that, at that time, sweets were not designed with the main consumers, children, in mind. The shopkeepers were also instructed to place the lollipops near the cash register within reach of children's hands — instead of the traditional placement behind the counter.

The Chupa Chups company was quite a success. Within five years his sweets were sold at 300,000 outlets. After the end of the Francisco Franco dictatorship (1939–1975), the self-funded private company went international. In the 1970s the colorful lollipops appeared in South East Asian nations like Singapore and Malaysia. In the 1980s it expanded to the European and American markets and in the 1990s to most Asian countries and Australian market. In 1995 a Chupa Chups lollipop was brought to the Mir space-station. As of 2003, 4 billion lollipops a year are sold to 150 countries with 2000 employees, 90 percent of abroad sales and a €500m turnover. In 1991, Bernat passed formal control of "Chupa Chups" to his son Javier. The Smint subsidiary brand/company was founded in 1994.

The game Zool and its sequel Zool 2, originally produced for the Amiga, featured pervasive product placement by Chupa Chups.

Chupa Chups Logo

The girl was the logo of Chupa Chups@ in its early years. However, as the product kept developing and expanding into markets all over the world, it needed a more universal design. But a universal design required the services of a universal artist, so one day in 1969 Enric Bernat travelled to Figueras, 150 km north of Barcelona, in order to pay a visit to the world famous Salvador Dalí.
Over lunch and in less than one hour this great artist sketched out on a piece of newspaper what was to be the basis of the Chupa Chups logo still in existence today. The brand name was centred in the middle of a simple and attractive design based on a daisy. Following the recommendation of Dalí, the logo was then removed from the side of the lollipop and placed on the crown in order to ensure legibility. And the rest as they say, is history.

The logo continued to evolve and underwent its last change in 1988, when the two styles were integrated into one and colour was added to the key lines around the daisy. However, despite modernisation and the passing of time, the essence has remained the same and the logo continues to have the same universal appeal brought about by that lunch back in 1969.