How much do you know about Salvador Dalí? There is no shortage of weird and wonderful facts about the Spanish surrealist artist famous for his masterpiece “The Persistence of Memory” (the one with the melting clocks), though his long, skinny mustache, his pet ocelot Babou, and his lengthy full name (Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí y Domenech) are also among the better-known things about him.
What you might not be aware of is that Salvador Dalí’s artwork is not confined to galleries and museums. In fact, you can see reproductions of an iconic Dalí work at grocery stores all over the world—just head to the candy aisle.
The same artist responsible for world-famous pieces displayed in Madrid’s Reina Sofia Museum and NYC’s Museum of Modern Art also designed the logo for the lollipop brand Chupa Chups. The company was founded by Enric Bernat in 1958, who had the brilliant idea of placing a suckable candy on a stick so that children wouldn’t get their hands sticky. The lollipops were originally known as “GOL” (as in soccer goal), but this didn’t catch on. They were later renamed “Chups” and finally “Chupa Chups” in 1963 (the Spanish verb chupar means “to suck”).
Yet Chupa Chups didn’t get their famous logo until 1969, when Bernat asked Dalí if he would come up with a design that could turn Chupa Chups into an internationally successful brand. As the story goes, the artist spent around an hour doodling before he came up with the logo, which features the red Chupa Chups wordmark inside a yellow daisy.
Although there have been some minor changes over the years, Dalí’s original design is still very clearly recognizable as the Chupa Chups logo. Dalí made another contribution to the product’s success, which was to insist that the logo be placed on the top rather than the side of the lollipop, so that it was always visible in its entirety. He was reportedly paid millions of dollars for his branding contributions, though Bernat likely considered this sum worth it, as Chupa Chups eventually grew to become the world’s largest lollipop brand.
Plenty more to suck on:
- The seven original Chupa Chups flavors were strawberry, orange, lemon, strawberry & cream, chocolate & vanilla, coffee & cream, and mint.
- Today, there are around 100 Chupa Chups flavors, available in over 160 countries. Annually, the company sells around five billion lollipops.
- Though originally aimed at children, Chupa Chups have also been heavily marketed to adults, including campaigns positioning Chupa Chups as an alternative to smoking (“Stop smoking, start sucking,” according to one advertising motto).
