throughout every country there are seemingly random holidays which companies have successfully
cashed in on in asian modern history no commercialized festival can match the success
of november 11. it's an innocuous day where chinese people spend billions of dollars online
while at the same time a south korean and japanese company fight to become the chocolate king of asia
today let's explore not one not two not four but three festivals introducing singles day pepero day
day oh it's good to be home we begin our video in china casting our minds way back into the ancient
times of 1993 in nanjing university the urban legend goes that a group of college students in
an effort to ease the pain of loneliness declared that november 11th would be a day where they would
not only celebrate their perpetual singledom but also commit themselves to finding true love
the 11th of the 11th was supposedly chosen because it resembles single sticks and thus it was called
guangunjie, guangun literally means bear branch or a male who could not add any new branches to
his family tree amazingly this unofficial holiday took off with single people around the country
taking part in various activities such as blind dating and even buying four fried dough sticks
called yotao to represent the date but things were taken to another level in 2009 when jack ma
and his e-commerce giant alibaba initiated a singles day shopping event on their own websites
taobao and teemo the event was so successful even in its first year the company was able to rake in
around 50 million rmb the name was later changed to shuangshiyi or double 11 festival to widen its
appeal and by 2019 the festival earned 39 billion dollars in sales with 1 billion of those sales
being made in the first 68 seconds each year home pages crash delivery companies are overwhelmed
with packages and year on year the madness grows nowadays all chinese online marketplaces
have joined in on the mass consumption craze and the competition has become so intense that as of
2020 companies are attempting to start the event from the beginning of november so while china is
whipped up into a shopping frenzy their neighbors to the east south korea and japan are locked in
their own sales battle to the death disguised as love and happiness november 11th in south korea
and japan are called pepero day and pocky day respectively pepero and pocky are chocolate-coated
breadsticks and according to ancient mythology on november 11th in the late 80s or 90s a group
of south korean schoolgirls in busan exchanged boxes of pepero believing that it would grant
their wishes of becoming as proportionally tall and skinny as their favorite snack this cute yet
slightly illogical idea spawned a craze which quickly morphed into an unofficial valentine's day
where couples and friends would give each other pepero so how did this cute tradition become the
battleground for two multinational corporations well for that we have to go back a little further
a confectionary company which is most famous for its running man mascot was founded in 1922
by ryuichi izak when he discovered a delicious method for making caramels out of oyster broth
the company continued to expand and in 1966 it released a chocolate coated biscuit stick called
pocky named after the sound it makes when it breaks popkin the snack was a hit and over
time glitco expanded the product line releasing various sizes and flavors the battle began however
17 years later when the south korean company locked it entered the scene today lotte is one
of the largest companies in south korea producing everything from hotels and chemical factories
to insurance companies and candies the company began in 1948 by a korean man named xingyoko
who stowed away on a boat and traveled to japan after failing to start a few businesses
he struck gold with bubble gum he named his new company lotte after the character charlotte
from the presumably famous german novel the sorrows of young werther the company
quickly expanded into all types of candies in 1967 shingyoko and lotte returned to korea
but then in 1983 much to the anger of glico lotte released pocky i mean pepero glico had attempted
to take lotte court over the identical snack and ultimately failed but then as if to fight back
in 1999 two years after the huge marketing success of pepero day glico launched their own completely
unique rival festival pocky day the success of both days cannot be understated lotte routinely
earns over 50 percent of its total annual sales of pepero during this period and the festival has
become fully ingrained into modern korean culture interestingly though with increasing obesity in
korea the government tried to promote november 11th as Garaetteok day which would see couples
exchange sticks of white rice cakes instead of chocolate yeah it's pretty obvious to see why
that didn't take off the japanese government however embraced pocky day and it has become a
nationally recognized festival pocky's aggressive say pocky and spread the smile marketing campaign
have led it to gain multiple world records such as most mentions of a brand name on twitter
largest chocolate coated biscuit brand most people open most people opening packaged most
people opening packaged food online simultaneously and the prestigious most people playing rock paper
scissors online simultaneously it is safe to say that for now pocky has won the battle but i
suspect with the sudden increase in popularity of korean culture the war is not yet over so
there you have it november 11th is an interesting case study into how countries embrace and develop
random and seemingly pointless festivals so whether you're celebrating being single shopping
online or giving a chocolate to the one you love just know that you're making someone somewhere
very happy thank you for watching my latest video if you're new to this channel be sure
to check out some of my older videos but to everyone who patiently waited for my next upload
i just want to say thank you and i'll try my best to be consistent from here on out
it's been about two years since i last uploaded a video so ah i might be a little rusty but to
everyone who waited around i'd just like to say thank you as always i'm wookong