To get underway on Oct. 11 Pocky certified by GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS™ as the world’s best-selling chocolate-coated biscuit brand (*)

Osaka, Japan--(Antara/Business Wire)- Pocky has now been certified by GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS as the world’s best-selling chocolate-coated biscuit brand*.

Loved by countless customers since its launch in 1966, Pocky is one of Ezaki Glico’s (Glico) longest-selling products. Since 2016, Glico has strengthened its brand management efforts of Pocky brand worldwide by implementing marketing tactics based on better consumer understanding within various markets around the world and enhancing the accuracy of its advertisements.

In particular, Glico has celebrated Pocky day on November 11th as part of an annual global campaign under Pocky’s “Share happiness!” global brand message in order to drive brand activity throughout the world. As part of the fifth year of the Global Pocky day campaign, Glico will launch “Say Pocky! Cheer Street View” -a global campaign that aims to bring smiles back to cities and towns that have lost their vitality due to the impact of COVID-19. This event kicks-off simultaneously on October 11th across 11 countries: Japan, the United States, Canada, Mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Indonesia. Glico will also launch a special edition Pocky package bearing the GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS record holder logo.

As many people in the world are being encouraged to refrain from gathering with others to ensure social distancing amid the COVID-19 global pandemic, Glico aims to provide an opportunity for people to feel connected with their loved ones by looking at each other’s smiles and thereby narrow their emotional distance despite their physical distance through the “Say Pocky! Cheer Street View” campaign.

(*) Largest chocolate coated biscuits brand - retail RSP, current (Estimated sales of $589,900,000 in 2019 based on international market research data)

(*) Cream covered biscuits are included in the data classification based on international market research.

Title: Largest chocolate-coated biscuit brand -- retail RSP, current

Year when the record was achieved: 2019

Global sales: $589.9 million (according to data from international market research)

Date of certification: June 22, 2020

Certifying organization: GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS

Glico adopted “Share happiness!” as Pocky’s global brand message. Under this message, the confectionery manufacturer has endeavored to enhance the name recognition of Pocky in numerous markets all over the world and staged various marketing campaigns to deepen its communication with consumers on the brand. Furthermore, Glico has staged the “Pocky day” campaign, which it regards as a key global campaign on the brand, each year since 2016 to help its customers share happiness with their loved ones.

This year, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, people all over the world have been forced to distance themselves from one another. With restrictions on going outdoors and traveling, many cities and living spaces have become practically deserted.

As society comes together in its various initiatives to overcome this crisis, we at Pocky believe that our longstanding message of “Share happiness!” and “smiles” as experienced value should be conveyed to people, now more than ever; a message that says “if you can smile, you can bring happiness back into your everyday life, over and over again.”

As part of Pocky day this year, the fifth year for the campaign, Glico will simultaneously launch Pocky day under the name “Say Pocky! Cheer Street View” in aims of bringing smiles back to cities and towns that lost their vitality due to the impact of COVID-19. This event kicks-off on October 11th in 11 locations: Japan, the United States, Canada, Mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Indonesia.

The current pandemic may have wiped the smiling faces from our towns and cities, but we are implementing a campaign to get those smiles back. Take a photo while saying the magic words “Say Pocky!”, and upload it to the Google Street View on our campaign website. By filling our map with smiles virtually, it is our hope that we can support and comfort each other until the time comes when we can all meet our loved ones for real.

We will also organize “Smile Relay,” an event aimed at allowing friends and family to pass on their posts in a relay-style fashion in addition to simply posting their smiles individually. The team that made the smile relay last longer in some locations will be introduced as part of a slide show on the Dotonbori Glico Sign that will appear on the campaign website on November 11th.

The “Say Pocky! Cheer Street View” campaign aims to bring a smile and a little bit of happiness to everyone against the backdrop of fatigue and stress brought on by the daily worry in the current atmosphere of self-restraint.

Name: Say Pocky! Cheer Street View

Period: October 11 to November 30, 2020

Areas: Japan, the United States, Canada, Mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Indonesia

URL: https://pocky-day2020.glico.com/

Saying the catchphrase “Pocky!” when taking a photo makes for a great smile. Fill your favorite town with smiles by posting your very own Pocky!-smile photos to the Google Street View on our campaign website, and sharing them with your loved ones.

Procedure:

1. Take a photo of yourself smiling on the campaign website while saying “Pocky.”

2. Drop a “Smile Pin” image onto your favorite spot selected from among 59 designated areas on Google Street View/Google Maps.

3. Download the Manufactured "Smile Pin" and share it on SNS.

4. Let's smile with your family and friends enjoying "Smile Relay".

Participants in the “Smile Relay,” in which people can participate with their friends and acquaintances, can share the Smile Pin of the same color with their friends and acquaintances. Moreover, the same sign is indicated on the photos of friends and acquaintances participating in the Smile Relay together. Participants can spread the Smile Relay by sharing with their friends a special URL link, which is given them after dropping their photos on the map, and having the friends participate in the campaign to further share the URL with others.

Among the 11 locations, the teams from Singapore, Thailand, Taiwan, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Indonesia who manage to keep their smile-relay going the longest from October 11th to November 10th will have their chain of smiles introduced as part of a slide show on the Dotonbori Glico Sign that will appear on the campaign website starting on November 11th.

Glico will hold an online event during the campaign on October 11th, and again on November 11th, 2020 (Pocky day). The company will enliven the relay of smiles all over the world by having influencers kick off the event.

Pocky is popular chocolate-based confectionary that has been loved by people all over the world since it was launched in Japan in 1966. It is made of a crisp pretzel, a kind of biscuit, coated by creamy chocolate. Glico has endeavored to enhance the Global Brand Management framework since 2016, and was certified by GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS™ as having the world’s highest sales* in 2020.(Title: Largest chocolate-coated biscuit brand -- retail RSP, current/ Estimated sales of $589,900,000 in 2019 based on international market research data)

Ezaki Glico has designated November 11 as Pocky day as part of its efforts to spread the happiness of sharing Pocky among people all over the world. November 11th was selected as Pocky day because Pocky is shaped like the number “1.” (In Japan, November 11th is certified by the Japan Anniversary Association as "Pocky & Pretz day".)

The company hopes that people all over the world will remember their loved ones, feel grateful for them on Pocky days and take action to bring more smiles to their loved ones’ faces.

In fact, in order to bring out a smile that gives a good impression and lasts in the memory, you need to warm up your muscles. Stretching your “sleeping” mimetic (facial expression) muscles immediately before you produce a smile enables you to form a Duchenne smile, also known as a genuine smile (*1), without any trouble.

(*1) This sort of smile is generally called a Duchenne smile (named after the 19th century French neurologist, Duchenne de Boulogne), which indicates a heart-felt facial expression in which the eyes are smiling and the muscles around the mouth and eyes are actively engaged.

When you call out “Pocky,” you open your eyes and stretch your cheek muscles to form a facial expression of surprise with the “Po,” then you can effortlessly form a facial expression close to a smile with the “cky.” Thoroughly warming up your cheek muscles lifts the corners of your mouth enabling you to give an appealing Golden Ratio Smile. You might say that pronouncing “Pocky” when you take your photos is a technique you can immediately put into practice for taking photos of your smile.

In order to determine whether “Pocky” really is the “Golden Ratio Smile” for making people smile in photographs, we performed an experiment with the assistance of some 200 students. In the experiment, for comparison purposes we used 7 different words used when taking photos around the world: “Cheese” (the US), “Kimchi” (Korea), “Tequila” (Mexico), “Spaghetti” (Germany), “Whiskey” (Africa) and “Qiezi” (“eggplant”; Mainland China) as well as “Pocky”. We asked them to subjectively rate the words out of 100 based on how well saying each word caused them to smile. The final survey results showed “Pocky” having an average score of 77, while the other words were all in the 60s, with “Pocky” easily outstripping the others in making the respondents smile. Most of the students responded that “The popping sound of the po- feels good and it was easy to smile naturally” and “The -y sound at the end makes it easy to smile”.

Furthermore, under the supervision of the Smile Researcher Professor Sugahara, we also performed an experiment with a face reader in order to analyze the smiles actually created by these photographers’ phrases. “Pocky”, more than the others, was found to easily produce a “Duchenne smile”, the ideal standard of smiles.

Born in Dazaifu, Fukuoka. Completed the Doctoral Program of the Department of Bioscience and Textile Technology, Interdisciplinary Graduate School of Science and Technology, Shinshu University, and was awarded his Ph.D. (Engineering) in 2005. Former Professorial Assistant, Faculty of Human Sciences, Waseda University; Assistant Professor, Faculty of Human Sciences, University of Human Arts and Sciences; and Extension Center Lecturer and Contract Lecturer, Faculty of Human Sciences, Waseda University. Currently Visiting Researcher, Advanced Research Center for Human Sciences, Waseda University; Contract Lecturer, Faculty of Information Sciences and Arts, and Visiting Researcher, Research Institute of Industrial Technology, Toyo University; Engineering Adviser, Tokyo Metropolitan Industrial Technology Research Institute; Representative Director, Society of Smile Science (SSS). Currently engaged in “research into the mechanisms and generation of smiling aimed at kansei formation” and has received multiple academic awards for this research.

Hirohisa Tamai (Mr.), Assistant Global Brand Manager, Ezaki Glico Co., Ltd.

Yuko Takatani (Ms.), Regional PR Manager, Glico Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd.

E-mail: glico-singapore@glico.com