With the K-food craze sweeping the globe, LOTTE Wellfood said on the 28th it has begun marketing to grow Pepero Day into a global festival this year.
Last year, Pepero recorded export sales of 70.1 billion won in about 50 countries. Compared with 54 billion won in exports in 2023, that is a 30% increase. Converted to units, that is 106.5 million, and last year was the first time export volume surpassed 100 million. Including Pepero exports, LOTTE Wellfood's overseas revenue topped 1 trillion won last year.
LOTTE Wellfood plans to carry this momentum into a global campaign this year under the slogan "Show your love with PEPERO." To that end, it selected the global K-pop group Stray Kids as the global ambassador for the Pepero brand. The company is targeting the Zalpha generation (born from the mid-1990s to the mid-2020s), which is highly interested in K-pop and Korean culture.
The campaign will roll out simultaneously in 20 countries, including the United States, India, and the Philippines. In addition to major outdoor marketing in key downtown areas, including a large billboard ad in New York's Times Square, an interactive event titled "Find the Pepero that Stray Kids hid!" will run on Seoul Subway Line 2. The idea is to evolve it into a "participatory global festival" by having consumers complete missions and share them via social networking services (SNS).
According to LOTTE Wellfood, cumulative sales of Pepero, which marks its 42nd anniversary this year, totaled about 2.15 trillion won last year. Sales volume reached 3.7 billion units. LOTTE Wellfood aims to boost the brand's global recognition and sales simultaneously by leveraging Pepero Day. In particular, it plans to expand its push into India, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia and nurture Pepero into a "global mega brand" with 1 trillion won in annual sales by 2035.
A LOTTE Wellfood official said, "With K-pop and K-food, the number of consumers overseas interested in Korea has been rising, and we are maintaining strong growth in global markets," adding, "We will actively promote the culture of Pepero Day so people around the world can enjoy it together."