Pepero Day

For years I have heard phrases like "consumer" and "greeting card" holidays but these have only really ever been used to describe days such as Valentines day and in some cases the modern versions of Easter and Christmas, but S.Korea has actually taken these words to a whole new meaning all together.

Inspired by valentines day, the company Pepero (a brand of chocolate biscuits/bread-sticks much like the more widely spread Japanese "Pocky") decided to celebrate itself on 11/11 purely because the four digits resemble four of the chocolate coated sticks that they market. They claim that the holiday was actually started by a group of middle school girls who on 11/11 gave each other Pepero and repeated to each other "may you grow to be tall and thin like a Pepero," which is fairly ironic as I doubt a bread stick coated in chocolate could ever aid in the growing or dieting process.

As the day has progressed and grown it has become a big tradition here in Korea to buy Pepero in abundance and basically hand it out to anyone you feel like really. Boyfriends are expected to shower their girlfriends in large boxes of the treats or overly sized versions. Children buy D-I-Y kits and decorate their own at home, some just buy backpacks full of it, even bakeries sell their own freshly-baked versions.

As a teacher; I spent my Pepero day being greeted at the beginning of every class with a new box of the stuff and as much as I appreciated the gesture it did make me laugh. I have always laughed at the concept of Easter; buying a disgusting amount of chocolate eggs to hand out to friends only to receive the exact same number of eggs in return as it would only be rude to accept and not to give. The joke was always when the gift giving and receiving was over, you realize that you technically bought yourself a room full of chocolate that isn't really all that good and you probably preferred the brands you gave away anyway.

My collection by the end of the day.

After a few giggles; I began to think to myself just how genius this idea really was. A single company has basically managed to create a national holiday that all children adore and take part in every year. I would love to know how much Pepero sales actually boost by in November. The only figure I was able to actually find was on wiki which says;

"Lotte usually does about 55% of their Pepero business in November every year."

I wonder if such an concept would be possible in other countries; Many people in the UK and USA already turn their noses up at valentines day claiming that it was created by greeting card companies. I just wonder what would happen if Cadburys or Heinz ever decided to devote a day to celebrating themselves, do you think it could actually hold any success on the other side of the world?