Chips Ahoy! facts for kids
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| Type | Drop cookie |
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| Owner | Mondelēz International |
| Country | United States |
| Introduced | 1963 |
| Markets | Worldwide |
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Chips Ahoy! is a popular American chocolate chip cookie brand. It's made by Nabisco, which is part of a bigger company called Mondelez International. These cookies first came out in 1963.
Chips Ahoy! cookies come in many different types. You can find original, reduced-fat, chunky, chewy, and even candy-blast versions. Each type has a different colored package. For example, the original Chips Ahoy! comes in a blue package, while the chewy cookies are in a red one.
In Malaysia, these cookies were sold under a different name: Chips More!.
Contents
What's in a Name?
The name "Chips Ahoy!" sounds like the old sailing phrase "Ships Ahoy!" This phrase was a warning or a greeting to ships. The exact reason why the cookies were named this way isn't fully clear.
The fun play on words had been used before:
- In a book called The Uncommercial Traveller by Charles Dickens. In one story, a shipbuilder named Chips is teased by a talking rat. The rat says, "Chips ahoy! Old boy! We've pretty well eat them too, and we'll drown the crew, and will eat them too!"
- In a 1956 animated short film called Chips Ahoy. This cartoon featured chipmunks.
A Bite of History
Chips Ahoy! cookies first appeared in 1963. They are now sold all over the world. You can find them in the United States, Latin America (where they are sometimes called "Choco Chips" or "Chips More!"), South Africa, Canada, India, Spain, Portugal, China, Indonesia, Taiwan, Mauritius, and the United Kingdom.
These cookies come in many sizes. You can buy small 1 ounce (28 g) mini-cookie packs or large 48 ounces (1,400 g) packages of regular-sized cookies. Chips Ahoy! is one of the best-selling cookies in the United States. It's the third most popular, right after Oreo cookies, which are also made by Nabisco.
Chips Ahoy! was sold in Indonesia from 1995 to 2005. It was brought back in September 2015 but then stopped being sold there in 2018.
Fun Advertising Campaigns
Over the years, Chips Ahoy! has had many memorable advertisements.
Early Ads: Cookie Man
In the 1960s and early 1970s, Chips Ahoy! bags had comic strips. These comics featured a superhero called "Cookie Man." He would fight off creatures that tried to eat cookies, like Fruit Fly or Big Wig. Cookie Man's secret identity was Mort Meek. Mort was always counting the 16 chips in his cookie when a monster attacked. Then, he would quickly change into Cookie Man in a phone booth or locker room, just like Batman. The same actor played both Mort Meek and Cookie Man in TV commercials.
Later Campaigns
In the early 1980s, commercials showed children acting like old-fashioned newspaper reporters. They were interested in "the 16 chips story" of the cookies. For a while in the mid-1990s, ads claimed Chips Ahoy! was "1,000 chips delicious!" Many commercials during this time used a part of the song "Sing, Sing, Sing" by Benny Goodman's jazz band.
From 2001 to 2010, the mascots for Chips Ahoy! were stop-motion animated "Cookie Guys." In one commercial, they drove a red car and sang "Don't You Want Me" by The Human League.
In 2010, the Cookie Guys were replaced. New ads focused on the "joy" of eating Chips Ahoy! cookies. These commercials showed that opening a bag of Chips Ahoy! made people so happy they would get "happy feet" and start dancing.
In 2014, Chips Ahoy! cookies arrived in the UK and Ireland. They came in two new flavors: Popcorn Candy Chip and Crispy Choco Caramel.
Legal Challenges
Mondelez, the company that owns Nabisco, has taken legal action against Aldi. Mondelez accused the German grocery store chain of copying its cookie packaging. The brands involved were Nutter Butter, Chips Ahoy!, and Oreo. Aldi sold similar cookies called "Peanut Butter Creme," "Benton's Chocolate Chip Cookies," and "Benton's Original Sandwich Cookies."
See also
In Spanish: Chips Ahoy! para niños
