The original advertising image of the peanuts with chocolate that ran through the kiosks between the 60s and 70s was linked to a topic celebrated in children’s cinema sessions, novels and classic comics (and comics, with Eustaquio Morcillon and Babali). : safaris. With the hunters and those mute porters who used to end up in the jaws of crocodiles and lions. Alluvium aborigines, “guanaminos”, with a reputation for being barbarians and cannibals who had to be colonized.
The doll of the conguitos (are they chubby because they gobble up explorers at will
) and its refrain was so successful that it ended up exhausting the company with the product, which could not meet the demand generated by its advertising. It was the typical caricature of an Indian, with two superimposed peanuts. He was born in 1961, two years after the independence of the first African colony, the Belgian Congo. The name was so on the front page with the civil wars in Katanga that the “conguitos” seemed appropriate and was also opportunistic.
As was the case with Cola-Cao, there was no better claim for chocolate than to appeal to the blacks of Tropical Africa, although this traditional advertising had been questioned for at least 30 years.
Evolution spots Conguitos
When the conguitos (manicos them, from Fedimar) appeared among the trinkets of the grocer’s in the neighborhood, the African countries were becoming independent but at a popular level they endured the paternal supremacism that throbbed in the movies of Tarzan and his jungle compadres.
In their little bags, which at first seemed like loot brought from some colony , the conguitos are part of the children’s landscape for several generations. In the mid-1980s, when Lacasa acquired the brand, the balls began to be represented by musical figures (Stevie Wonder, Tina Turner), which does not improve the outlook in today’s eyes but was a successful advertising in its moment and I modernize the image of the candy.
Ad for Conguitos years 90
Without too many shocks, on one more shelf of candy stores, the conguitos, with their logo printed on the cover of the legume, have remained in everyday life. When someone achieves a good tan they say “conguito” .
We are not a racist country, but the chubby doll speculates that it should go down in history without fanfare, it is amortized and such explicit links between chocolate and black skin are not necessary.
The name is common, nice, powerful. But it should never jump between us to the pejorative side.
