Background

"Restaurants' beer sales to young people were showing a downward trend. However, while there has been a decrease in big drinking party such as company parties, there has been an increase in small drinking parties between friends, so young people are having more opportunities to go out and drink. Asahi Breweries wanted young people to drink beer and expand sales. We implemented the project at Tokyo izakaya selling Asahi beer."

Describe the creative idea (40% of vote)

"We paid attention to the fact that young people come to izakaya in pursuit of communication. We then focused on bottled beer that in Japan long has been associated with a culture of deepening communication by pouring each other glasses. Young people tend to see this as something for older generations, so in order to help them order bottled beer that they are unfamiliar with, we changed the name on the menu from ""Bottled beer"" to ""Aete no bin"" (Specifically a bottle). We aimed to draw the attention of young people by basing the name on ""toriaezu nama"" (A beer for now), which has become a set phrase for ordering the first drink pervasive at Japanese bars."

Describe the execution (40% of vote)

"We designed it to resemble a typical izakaya menu display and did not include a logo to make it look less like an ad. This is something that is only possible for Asahi Breweries who has the biggest bottled beer share. We put it on the wall next to other menu items. We implemented this at Tokyo izakaya selling Asahi beer."

List the results (20% of vote)

"When we did this at Tokyo restaurants, bottled beer sales, which had shown a downward trend, went up by almost 140% on the previous year in just one month. It kept getting sold out at restaurants. Following the success of this campaign, we decided to expand nationwide, and there was such a response that restaurants started approaching us. At the restaurants where we implemented this, we saw many young people making orders saying ""I'll specifically have a bottle"" and having fun with their friends. Despite minimal media exposure, we appeared twice on Yahoo! News and bottled beer also became quite topical in the business media. We reformed the image of bottled beer and successfully encouraged young people to drink it."