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The main Christian festivals of Christmas and Easter, for example, have become increasingly commercialized in recent years. The commercialization of annual festivals in Western countriesĪ similar phenomenon to the commercial influence over how the Mid-Autumn Festival is celebrated in Taiwan has occurred in many Western and European countries. Traditional decorated Ukrainian Easter eggs, given as gifts during the holiday period. One thing is certain though, it is a salutary lesson in the power of advertising to, for better or worse, influence not just consumer behavior, but even alter the mores and traditions of an entire society. Whether one views the modern barbecue craze as a positive evolution of the festival into a unique Taiwanese celebration, or an ancient festival hijacked by corporations and clever marketing, is a matter for debate. In Taiwan, while the “grill-industry” now rules the roost during Mid-Autumn Festival, sales of moon cakes and seasonal pomelos (the fruit is eaten while the carefully-preserved emerald green peel is worn as a novelty hat) are still big business over the holiday period. Char-grilling everything under the sun - from Chinese sausages, pig’s blood cake and Taiwanese-style tempura - is now so popular that it has become the number one activity associated with the festival in Taiwan.Ī still from Kimlan Food’s 1989 Bar-B-Q Sauce television commercial. The combined effect of these commercial campaigns gradually led to barbecuing being associated with the Mid-Autumn Festival in the minds of the Taiwanese public.
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Not to be outdone, Wajashan Food launched a counter-offensive, releasing an updated version of its original hit television commercial.Īround the same time, new supermarkets and wholesalers such as Wellcome, Carrefour and the now obsolete Makro began to offer discounts on barbecue food ingredients and accoutrements in the lead-up to the festival. The advertisement featured footage of food being liberally doused with barbecue sauce to an infectiously catchy jingle.
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Three years later Kimlan Food released its own television commercial as part of a saturation advertising campaign for its rival Bar-B-Q Sauce. Taipei residents enjoy a street-side barbecue during last year’s Mid-Autumn Festival. It included the slogan: “When one household grills on the barbecue, ten thousand families smell the aroma.” The commercial featured sizzling-hot celebrity of the moment, Chang Yung-yung, as the condiment’s brand ambassador, helping ignite the craze for Mid-Autumn Festival barbecuing.
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In 1986, Wajashan Food released a television commercial for its Wan Ja Shan Barbecue Sauce in the run-up to the Mid-Autumn Festival. The practice of barbecuing during Mid-Autumn Festival actually dates back no more than three decades, when two of Taiwan’s largest soy sauce manufacturers, Wan Ja Shan Food and Kimlan Food, jousted with each other in an advertising war to sell their respective barbecue sauce brands. However, the custom of cooking alfresco under the light of the full moon isn’t as old as one might suppose rather it is a prime example of the power of advertising. The sight of gaggles of friends, family and colleagues clustered around disposable barbecues by the road side, sweating over glowing coals as the aroma of singed meat permeates the sultry evening air, is a familiar scene to anyone who has experienced the Mid-Autumn Festival in Taiwan.