OurHistory
Baci® Perugina®'s history is long and full of curious and fascinating anecdotes. Discover all about the origin of Baci® Perugina®, the evolution of the love note and advertising communication that has allowed Baci® to become a true Italian icon.
Luisa Spagnoli, kneads the hazelnut grains, adding a whole hazelnut and covering it with the unmistakable Luisa® dark chocolate. She calls it a "Cazzotto", as the shape resembles a “punch / fist”.
Despite Luisa Spagnoli's excellent intuition, Giovanni Buitoni is doubtful: how could a customer enter a store and ask for “a chocolate punch?” From this Luisa decides to call it “Baci”, for a new identity is needed. The silver-colored wrapping, blue writing, and love note are the works of Perugina’s art director, Federico Seneca. The inspiration of Hayez’s painting “il bacio” is prominently displayed on the packaging.
The success of Baci® Perugina® is overwhelming thanks to its unique recipe, the romantic surprise of the love note and the silver paper that embellishes the chocolate.
The advertising of 1927 states: "In just 5 years Perugina factory has distributed one hundred million Baci® chocolates and continues, with enthusiasm, to this day”.
The success of Baci® Perugina® expands overseas, and lands not only in the homes but in the hearts of Americans. In 1939 Perugina factory opened its first flagship store on the prestigious 5th avenue of New York, further growing its elegance and popularity.
In 1940 the elegant silver Baci® Perugina® wrapper is further enriched with blue stars as a perfect compliment to the love note contained inside.
Next to the classic Baci® Perugina® boxes comes the new tube pack. Fun and innovative, the Tube stimulates the birth of a new language for young people who will give a burst of joy to the history of Baci® brand which has now entered everyone’s hearts.
During Eurochocolate, the biggest chocolate festival held every year in Perugia, the biggest Baci® Perugina® chocolate is made, earning its place in the Guinness Book of World Records: 7 feet high, 24 feet wide and weighing 13,183 pounds. A chocolate heart that requires the commitment of a 1,000 hours of processing by the Perugina pastry team.
Baci® Perugina® changes clothes and is dressed in a pure white chocolate that covers the soft heart of hazelnut and hazelnut grains. The result is an unexpected contrast of colors and flavors, yet a perfectly harmonious and balanced taste.
The wrapper is blue and studded with white stars, a hint of the delicate and unique taste experience.
For a delicate tasting experience, comes Baci® Perugina® Milk. A small masterpiece, featuring a soft inner core made from hazelnut grains, cocoa, and a whole hazelnut covered in velvety milk chocolate. The blue wrapper studded with silver stars transmits a message of affection and love known to spark emotion.
To satisfy those who yearned for a dark chocolate option, comes Baci® Perugina® extra dark 70%. The soft heart enriched with cocoa bean and hazelnut grains topped off with a whole hazelnut. The 70% dark chocolate double coating finishes off the taste with a rich experience. Its black wrapper is reminiscent of its dark chocolate, topped with many gold stars.
With a reinvention of its look but retaining the tradition of its quality, Baci® Perugina® updates its look and more.
A trail of golden and white stars adorn the Perugina® logo.
Even the packs are redesigned to highlight the taste and the unique quality of the whole range even more; Luisa® dark chocolate, Extra Dark 70%, Milk and White, with its new ivory-colored wrapping, best describe the experience they promise to make, but nothing in the recipe and taste has changed compared to their origins.
Pink, à la mode and with its own unusual and special coating. For the first time, Baci® Perugina® has created a limited edition in which its iconic praline has gone pink. Baci® Perugina® Ruby Limited Edition, with its fruity unique and delicate flavour, will surprise you and win you over.
Baci ® Perugina ® is now all-gold, a treat for the eye that will amaze you at the first bite. Its elegant star-studded gold wrapper and amber-coloured coating, make Baci ® Perugina ® Gold Limited Edition unique and unparalleled.
Inspired by the unique and creamy chocolate core of Baci ® Perugina ®, we are proud to announce the first Baci ® Perugina ® chocolate spread. And its special, inimitable trademark are the crunchy hazelnut bits. Not to mention its iconic wrapping to enjoy and share an experience that goes right to the heart.
From the meeting of two examples of Italian excellence is born the new Baci® Perugina® Dolce Vita® Limited Edition by Dolce&Gabbana. A unique taste experience which starts with the elegant wrapping and culminates in the light-coloured and enveloping covering that encloses within it a whole hazelnut and the soft inner filling with lemon-flavoured grains.
Baci® Perugina® is a global success which, for 100 years, has accompanied chocolate lovers with its new creations and the great classics.
For Valentine’s Day, to celebrate its centenary, Baci ® Perugina ® is launching a Limited Edition in collaboration with Dolce&Gabbana. A gem-studded, bright red wrapper to celebrate true love.
The love notes inserted in the first Baci® Perugina® chocolates were Perugina’s Art Director, Francesco Seneca, and Giovanni Buitoni, one of the company's four founders, idea. The idea, according to the legend, comes from the habit of Buitoni and Luisa Spagnoli, clandestine lovers, who exchange love messages hidden in chocolates.
Seneca and Buitoni are the writers of the first notes who do not always choose romantic phrases. The first, "Meglio un bacio oggi che una gallina domani" (Better a kiss today than a hen tomorrow) which is signed by "Seneca" as a joke, as his name is the same as a Latin philosopher’s name, which created a great confusion among the consumers.
Other love notes are "Se puoi baciar la padrona, non baciar la serva” (If you can kiss the mistress, do not kiss the servant) or "Un bacio senza barba è una zuppa senza sale” (A beardless kiss is a soup without salt).
In a very short time, Baci® Perugina® love notes are already a cult object, to the point that one of the first Italian prize competitions is held. Designed to amuse the collectors of the first hour and to stimulate new ones, the mechanism is very simple: the phrase of the note is divided into two different rounds, the first refers to the second. In order to complete the whole sentence, the contestant must try to find the love note, exchanging them with other enthusiasts.
Federico Seneca is always working to translate a sentence by Cyrano de Bergerac that will remain in the history of the love notes as one of the most iconic of Baci® Perugina®.
The original phrase "Un point rose qu'on met sur i i verbe aimer", literally untranslatable in Italian, is translated with the now famous: "E che cos'è un Bacio? Un apostrofo rosa fra le parole t'amo" (And what is a kiss? A pink apostrophe between the word t'amo.)
The popularity of Baci® Perugina® is such that it crosses Italian borders and reaches the whole world. The love notes are translated into Arabic.
The international success gives a new look to the love note: this is how the famous stars which flank the Baci® Perugina® logo came about. The love notes become the color that from here on will be a symbol of sweetness and feelings: Baci® blue.
It is the year of changes for the love notes. Both the couple and the stars are removed. The graphics are simplified revealing a very minimal aesthetic taste still with the iconic Baci® blue.
In the 60s Baci® love notes are already translated into three languages. After Italian, French and English arrive to enter the hearts of the citizens of the nascent European Community. In the same years, the stars come back to the design of the love notes.
In the 70s the love notes are rejuvenated thanks to the appearance of the graphics. From floral art nouveau to oriental influences, enclosed by the famous Hokusai Great Wave.
Baci® Perugina® joins the great love poets throughout history to create love notes that contain timeless words to describe timeless feelings. The love phrases become of the highest quality, like the Baci® chocolate.
Baci® Perugina® grows internationally and the love notes are translated into 5 different languages to describe what each of us feels in our hearts. After English and French, the love notes now speak Spanish and Portuguese.
The Baci® chocolates are so popular that to become accessible to lovers all over the world that speak Chinese.
To celebrate the 90th birthday of Baci® Perugina®, the chocolates are wrapped with a vintage love note: the romance of the 1920s becomes the protagonist of a special collection dedicated to the celebration.
The Baci® Perugina® bookcase becomes huge! In 2013 there are a total of 390 phrases and words of affirmation all different ready to wrap a Baci®.
For the first time, Baci® Perugina® allows all lovers to speak. The cards become customizable with the dedications of people who want to express their feelings through a romantic gesture like giving a Baci®.
To celebrate universal love and to support Data4Life, Baci® Perugina® launches a very special limited edition.
Famous musicians and actors start to play a modern cupid and make the phrases of the love notes using their lyrics or quotes.
Dolce&Gabbana lends its name to the Dolce Vita® Limited Edition to make it unique and special in every way: an extraordinarily creative design for a Limited Edition masterpiece with the exclusive phrases of Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana.
This year, to celebrate the first 100 years of Baci® Perugina®, Valentine’s Day comes alive with the new Limited Edition Amore e Passione created together with Dolce&Gabbana. Special inserts with the phrases of Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana that are perfect for touching the heart of the person you love.
From its inception in 1922 the success of Baci® Perugina® was so immediate that in 1925, thanks to the contribution of Federico Seneca, the first stamp of the Kingdom of Italy was created using a chocolate campaign.
The success of Baci® Perugina® is overwhelming. Among the first Baci® Perugina® advertisements of 1927 reads as follows: "In just 5 years Perugina has distributed one hundred million Baci® chocolates and continues to this day".
"Wherever there is love there is a Baci® Perugina®", says the 1956 advertisement that suggests to lovers to gift both spring flowers and Baci® Perugina® that "allow us to offer a classy gift that is always appreciated".
Baci® Perugina® is the first brand in the Italian market to promote new holidays such as Mother's Day. Gifting Baci® Perugina® becomes the best way to tell the most special woman how much you love her by offering her sweetness and poetry.
Baci® Perugina® consolidates its role as a romantic messenger of love by becoming the gift of lovers in love. Baci® Perugina® is the sweetest way to say "I love you" thanks to its love note, the double covering of Luisa® chocolate that coats a crunchy whole hazelnut and soft hazelnut grains and cocoa inside.
Baci Perugina makes its TV advertising debut with ads for “Carosello” featuring the international talents of Vittorio Gassman and Frank Sinatra. Both the artists and Baci® Perugina® shared a sense of Italian heritage and international success. Within the boxes of that period, discounts could be found inside promoting their records.
"The most romantic contest in the world" is that lovers who buy Baci® Perugina® can win a romantic cruise for two people and enjoy a dream trip.
The advertisement “when words are not enough” drives home the message of Baci® Perugina®’s ability to help transmit the messages of love, affection, consolation, and forgiveness in a way that’s bigger than words. The image that accompanied the new Baci Perugina campaign was that of a pair of lovers on the Mongerbino Bridge, a natural stone arch located in Bagheria, near Palermo.
The launch of the famous tube pack represents a significant change in the communication of Baci® Perugina®. The magical and poignant atmospheres give way to a choral advertising that, inspired by the packaging, has the strength to create a new language. "Tubare" becomes synonymous and results in a lot of word play such as “Impara il linguaggio dei tubi! Così gli altri non ci capiranno un tubo!” (Learn the language of the tubes so others will not understand a tube!)
After the great success of the Tube, the vivacity of the 80s involves Baci® Perugina® more and more. In the new campaign, Baci® Perugina® continues to address young people choosing an atmosphere full of joy, like the song that accompanies the advertisement. Share Baci® Perugina® because everything is covered by the classic stars on the blue background.
Baci® Perugina® helps to make new friends and change the atmosphere. The advertisement in 1989 narrates all the messages that can be conveyed with a simple gesture. The important thing is to externalize your love and to demonstrate it in every way to the exclamation “Diamoci un mondo di Baci®” ("Let's make a Baci® world").
Baci® Perugina® is the warm and welcoming house of affection that awaits us after a long journey or after being distant. The message “A casa aspettano un Baci®” (At home waiting for a Baci®) suggests celebrating the joy of returning home, for an explosion of emotions and memories with Baci® Perugina®.
The message “a casa aspettano un Baci®” touches on the warm feeling of coming home from either a long physical journey, or a personal distance or disconnect. The celebration of reunion with your loved ones is shared through the experience of enjoying a Baci after a long time.
On the 8th April 1997 the passengers of the Alitalia AZ610 flight from Rome to New York entered history along with the jumbo 747. The joint campaign between Alitalia and Baci® Perugina® transforms the aircraft into a huge Baci® tube with a blue background, bands of silver stars on the sides and a huge chocolate on the cockpit. There is no shortage of stars and the words "Baci dall'Italia. Baci da Alitalia". It took 2,000 hours of work by 30 technicians to paint this special aircraft in just 9 days.
Baci® Perugina® goes online, which in a few years brings together more than 400,000 members. Even in the internet age the success of Baci® Perugina® has no boundaries and the community of romantics is greater than ever.
The "Piacere D'Autore" project allows Baci® Perugina® enthusiasts to write their own love notes. Judge of the initiative Federico Moccia, the Italian idol writer of the younger generations, selects 15 sentences from over 40,000 entries. The dedications of love are inserted in the Baci® Perugina® love notes in December 2010.
Baci® Perugina®'s Facebook page reaches 1 million fans in January.
It is an important number that deserves a video to show gratitude especially dedicated to those who love, those who love each other for a day or always, but also to all those who are still looking for love.
Baci® Perugina® celebrates Valentine's Day with a romantic reinterpretation of the 80s tube. The tube takes the shape of a heart and quickly wins many fans' hearts.
The exclusive shop is open, which makes it possible to transform every person in love to create their own love notes. From the website, you can create personalized messages for a really special gift box to give to those who love each other.
Baci® Perugina® sparks emotions with an ad directed by the great director Gabriele Salvatores. The Christmas atmosphere in the family turns into a great emotion for adults and children, all animated by the desire to give, share and be together.
Baci® Perugina® has a new look using stunning wrappers and packaging, and a new, magnificent logo.
Tradition and innovation meet to make Valentine’s Day unforgettable. Sharing emotions is even sweeter thanks to the Baci ® Perugina ® Valentine’s Day 2019 love filter—the perfect way to create a special message to dedicate and share with the one you love.
Covid-19 has had a major impact on the lives of everyone. Baci ® Perugina ® —which has always been the messenger of love and positive feelings—is now the ambassador of the most beautiful emotions, those that have always united us, even when faraway.
Baci ® Perugina ® is launching a special partnership with Dolce&Gabbana. And a new creation has been born, Baci ® Perugina ® Dolce Vita® Limited Edition which reflects the values of these two Italian excellence: tradition, quality, and cure to detail and passion.
100 years, an important anniversary for Baci ® Perugina ® Luisa ® Original Dark, the truffle which has become an icon, that heightens Italy’s prestige throughout the world, thanks to its distinctiveness, exclusive ingredients and unique wrappings.
