Last week, on Nov 11, Ezaki Glico celebrated Pocky & Pretz Day (11/11) with the Try World Record campaign in which the snack maker hoped to gather the most tweets containing the name “Pocky” in one day thus entering the Guinness World Records.
The goal was set at 1.11 million tweets, for obvious visual reasons, and to defeat the previous “The Brand Name Most Tweeted in 24 Hours” record holder, iPhone5, which got 1.08 million tweets on its release day. And the winner is…
Pocky by a landslide! The 1,843,733 final tally doesn’t really fit in with the Pocky shape theme – unless maybe you kind of turn the 8 sideways and flip the 3 – but it handily defeated iPhone5 and earned the Guinness World Record.
On Friday, official Guinness World Records representative Carlos Martinez presented the certificate to Ryuta Taniguchi of Ezaki Glico at their office in Tokyo.
Congratulations to the best darn chocolate covered cookie stick making company out there. And give yourselves a hand, everyone who tweeted and helped Pocky & Pretz Day 2012 earn another World Record for Japan.
Source: Pocky, japan.internet.com via My Game News Flash (Japanese)
© RocketNews24
19 Comments
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basroil
This is certainly a pointless experiment in trying to crash twitter.
Probie
Am I just having a slow day, or does this make no sense to everyone else?
basroil
ProbieNov. 18, 2012 - 05:17PM JST
Unless you're on drugs or something of that nature, no, it shouldn't make sense and it doesn't. They might have been referring to the 1.11 million, but that number was simply there to be significantly larger than the last, not for ascetic reasons.
titaniumdioxide
South Korea also celebrate the "Popero Day" on 11/11. Popero is the korean copy/rip-off of Japan's Pocky.
Guinness is getting lamer and lamer with its records.
sighclops
Guinness World Records is losing its credibility. Fast.
basroil
titaniumdioxideNov. 18, 2012 - 11:04PM JST
sighclopsNov. 18, 2012 - 11:19PM JST
You guys do realize that Guinness World Records is Guinness as in the beer company? It was never meant to be a credible publication, it was always meant as an advertisement for beer, i.e. who can do the dumbest, most pointless thing the best.
Thomas Michael Lewis
@basroil actually it was meant to be a compendium of facts and trivia. It was not made with people doing the dumbest things in mind.
smithinjapan
Pocky went above and beyond last year, with it of course being 2011 for a few extra ones, and that was a boon for them, so good on them.
titaniumdioxide: "South Korea also celebrate the "Popero Day" on 11/11. Popero is the korean copy/rip-off of Japan's Pocky."
Prove which one was first. Most Japanese snacks are in fact rip-offs of popular Korean ones, both made by... ahem... the Korean-based company LOTTE (or are you like other Japanese who blindly bring out the hate and thing Lotte comes from Japan?). Better yet -- what do you think 'Pretz' is a reduced form of? could it be.... PRETZELS? There's not a lot that's original out there, my friend, and anything aside from traditional snacks in Japan was copied at some point. Glico makes some nice snacks, but leave your hate at the door, please.
nigelboy
Pocky, of course. First commercialized in 1966. The knock off version came in 1983. There is no hate. It's the truth that they even had to copy the packaging and the date of 11/11. It's common knowledge that a name Pretz was derived from a traditional pretzel.
smithinjapan
nigelboy: "It's common knowledge that a name Pretz was derived from a traditional pretzel."
And my question was rhetorical, proving that there's really nothing original about the Japanese snack, if people want to talk about knock-offs as the topic of their posts. Quite frankly I think both Popery and Pocky are crap, but the latter slightly less so (I do like Pretz, though).
Anyway, I came on here to praise Glico for this trivial little accomplishment, and nothing else until I saw the comment I quoted. Just be wary that a lot of what people here think is 'original' is far from it, same as it is in many other nations.
nigelboy
I think comparing Pretz to pretzel as opposed to Pocky to popero is night and day. The former is derived from a traditional snack while the latter is just a copy including the package and the day.
nath
As a guy who sells Pocky, I say cool.
smithinjapan
nigelboy: "I think comparing Pretz to pretzel as opposed to Pocky to popero is night and day. The former is derived from a traditional snack while the latter is just a copy including the package and the day."
It's a bit of a stretch, but not THAT much of one when you consider the whole point of the original poster was to suggest superiority and inferiority based solely on the idea of imitation. If you're going to speak of copies, speak of copies, don't say, "guffaw.... it's okay to an extent because B copied A, but not okay when C copies B because it's more recent".
I don't think we're on a different page here, nigelboy, it was the spirit of the comment I was contesting.
Shi Yuehan
As POCKY's biggest fan for the last 35 years, I can confirm that they are the best treat bar none. They are the answer to all the ill's facing the world today. One box a day will bring Peace, Happiness and Prosperity to all. Second only to money in improving your love life.
nath
"They might have been referring to the 1.11 million, but that number was simply there to be significantly larger than the last, not for ascetic reasons."
True. Not for "ascetic" reasons - for aesthetic reasons. Pick a target number with digits before the million unit that resemble Pocky sticks..
smithinjapan
Shi Yuehan: Chacon son gut. Good on you, my friend. If only products brought us all the peace that Pocky has brought you. Personally I think a box a day of any such sweets would bring nothing but happy dentists, but that's me. :)
nigelboy
It's a blatant imitation of a commercially licensced product(package, marketing) versus a derivation of a centuries old traditional snack. Let me correct that. It's apples and oranges.
smithinjapan
nigelboy: Regardless, there are heaps of examples where Japanese do the same thing, and many cases where the accusations on BOTH side are unfounded because they food recipes are sold to domestic companies in those nations, so those nations make similar products in the tie-ups, as is the case with snack maker Kameda tied up with Korean Nongshim, or the more obvious case of Lotte Japan's production of snacks in Korea. In other words, people ought to think a little more if they're going to bring that kind of crap up on a post that really doesn't have a lot do with the thread. Praise Pocky and Pretz? Sure! Knock them? Sure! But don't bring in another nation and dissing it for no reason.
nigelboy
Except that there are no "tie-ups" in this case, hence the label of "rip off". And they should be dissed for doing so.