Company Name: Oishi (Liwayway Marketing Corporation)
Company Owner: Carlos Chan
Company Address: Brgy. 129,2225 Tolentino St. Pasay, Metro Manila
Official Contact #: (02) 844 8441
Company Website: https://www.oishi.com.ph/
Company Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/oishi.ph/
Contact Person:
Contact #:
Product/Services: Snacks and Beverages
Corporate Social Responsibility
We partnered with Adarna House, the first and largest publisher of Filipino children’s books, to publish the reference books for Filipino kids, 100 Questions Kids Ask.
The book mixes fun with fact, giving kids the answers to 100 questions in the fields of science, history, and culture, art, and sports, gathered through a survey of over 400 Filipino kids.
We also support Habi Bags–containers, bags and accessories made from scrap packaging material.
The multiple folds of the woven strips make Habi Bags strong and durable.
Oishi's laudable advocacy
With the economic meltdown resulting from the subprime crisis that claimed even iconic financial institutions in the United States, the euro zone and other Asian nations, a financial literacy program that Liwayway Marketing Corp., manufacturer of the Oishi brand of snack items, has launched is laudable as it is admirable.
The advocacy involves the production of a series of glossy comic books targeted at children. The series aims to turn children into "peso-smart kids" via a story-telling scenario on ways to conserve their money, avoid profligate spending and emerge savings-conscious.
Dubbed "Oishi peso-smart kids," the cartoon series is part of a "freebie" for buyers of the snack items, and as they are elegantly produced, the kids get to hone their financial literacy via compelling story lines. We understand that company president Carlos Chan has tapped his eldest son, Archie, to make sure this financial literacy program is given the desired impetus to succeed. The series is an admirable way by which the unassuming Mr. Chan, whose snack items are making inroads in China, Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines, puts forth an advocacy targeted at children.
There is no question the project deserves to be replicated by other Philippine companies; it should form part of their corporate social responsibility. Here again, Mr. Chan provides a glimpse into his vision: a generation of kids smart in their handling of money. The smart way by which Oishi has conceptualized the project reveals, in a way, how he has successfully marketed the Oishi brand. Indeed, the Oishi line has held its own against even the United States' Frito Lay snack line in China and is now about to dominate the Philippine snack market.
In producing the financial-advocacy series, Oishi gets the attention of its target market on its marketing thrust. And with this goodwill, its snack items get to be consumed. For the Oishi as a brand seeps into the consciousness of the kids who have benefited from the wise counsel on money that the series espouses. Having learned to live with snacking on Oishi and learning from its financial advocacy series, kids thus become a captured market, enough to propel the company to greater heights.
This advocacy of Mr. Chan comes at an opportune time. With the financial debacle that arose from the subprime crisis principally caused by the loading of toxic debts by huge financial institutions, the series allows parents to impart to their children the need to know the pitfalls of finance. The series opener alone, titled "Once I was rich," details the travails of a child who got lots of money but then spent it all. The richly illustrated comic book was written by May Tobias Papa with artwork by Beth Parrocha Doctolero and it tells the "true confessions of a nine-year-old big spender."
The series opener asks, "What would you do if you had a thousand pesos? Will you save it or will you spend it away?" Then the comic book tells of a well-known fable about the ant and the grasshopper where the former spends the days storing up food for the coming rainy days while the grasshopper "spends idle days under the sun." Thus, when the rains come, the ant's hard work pays off while the grasshopper finds itself dying of hunger. The baby boomers like us are very familiar with this fable and it was a way by which the teachers of old told their pupils how to save for the rainy days.
In working on the series, Oishi said the "financial education for kids" is at the heart of the production of the advocacy: "It takes inspiration from the lessons taught by the diligent and wise ant," the company said. We understand that the company has been receiving lots of materials from contributors. The contributions range from distinguishing between want and need (when you forgo your desire to have a luxury car, settling instead for a low-cost brand since all you need is a vehicle to take you from point A to point B) to saving for the rainy day.
Getting to know Mr. Chan is much like reading the numerous fables which instilled values in us when we were still school kids. We remember being mesmerized by the fable of the ant and the grasshopper in our elementary days, and knowing it by heart due to the pitter-patter of the rains. There is also that fable about greed: the dog losing a bone when it barked at the mirror image of the bone on the water. We are pretty sure Mr. Chan learned valuable lessons from these fables, which could be part of the reason for his immense success in the snack-food business.
Oishi's foray into the snack-line business in China involved a radical shift from the family business of Liwayway gawgaw (flour). Since then, the company's fortunes have risen by leaps and bounds and it is now on the threshold of "invading" the former Russian states. The success, we are pretty sure, could have arisen from the company's patient accumulation of what it needs like the ant's in that favorite fable. Mr. Chan has learned much from the fables and it is no wonder that he remains as simple as ever and continues to frown upon excessive display of wealth.
We had occasion to interview Mr. Chan and we remember that the company continues to employ the old hands of Liwayway Marketing who still pack the flour via old-fashioned ways, such as the use of newspapers. The company has frowned upon introducing automation since it would mean the loss of jobs for the old folks in the company. Here is the essence of the man who, wealthy as he is, has remained low-key and as simple as when he first ventured abroad to set up the family company's first kropeck snack line in China.
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