November 11, Pocky Day In Japan

In Japan, "Pocky Day" on November 11th has become a hugely popular unofficial national day of celebration for the famous Japanese chocolate sticks made by the food company Glico headquartered in Osaka. Pocky was first sold in 1966, and were invented by Yoshiaki Koma. Why its Pocky day? Because the sticks are like the number "1". So the 11th day of the 11th month of the year became Pocky Day. The word "pocky" comes from the Japanese onomatopoeia, - pokkin ポッキン the sound of something long broken in two.

Pocky grew in popularity. And it wasn't long before a rival company from Korea, Lotte took notice. In 1983, South Korean food company Lotte launched a similar (identical) product called Pepero. On November 11th, people in South Korea exchange Pepero in a sort of autumnal Valentine's Day. One story claims two schoolgirls in Yeongnam started the tradition. They ate Lotte Pepero on November 11, 1994 in the hopes of becoming tall and thin like the stick. The Korean food company Lotte noticed the trends and started promoting "Pepero Day" on 11 November. 

It grew so popular that by 2012, Lotte was making 50% of its annual profits from Pepero Day. Glico, the originator of the stick, was not amused. The company had a simple plan: deploy advertising on November 11th and tell everyone it's Pocky Day. And that's exactly what they did in 1999. The year 1999 is the 11th year of Heisei in the Japanese calendar. Thus November 11, 1999 in Japan was 11-11-11. With the power of advertising, everyone in Japan agreed it was a good excuse to eat cookies. The trending eating Pocky on November 11, are now popular around the world compare to Pepero. Which one do you think are more popular, Pocky or Pepero?