Consumer centric marketing

June 5, 2023

Kirin Group has been promoting "consumer-centric marketing expertise" built around its operating companies to enhance its organizational capability in marketing to achieve innovation.

Marketing functions of the Kirin Group

Kirin Group’s initiatives to strengthen consumer-centric marketing capabilities are only halfway complete. We have set the following opportunities to further improve the capabilities and are making steady efforts.

• Raise our “ability to understand customers,” which is the foundation of CSV management, to an even higher level throughout the Group
• Create marketing capabilities in new business domains
• Develop and utilize human capital across the Group for the future
• Provide support in resolving operating companies’ challenges and create collaboration across the Group

In order to turn these opportunities into growth for the Group, we have established a Marketing Central Team and strengthened its function as a group headquarters. The team horizontally links the marketing departments of Kirin Group companies, enhances the Group’s consumer-centric marketing expertise, and is committed to promoting transformation through swift decision-making and business execution based on current circumstances.

Further strengthening and utilizing human capital development across the Group

Human capital development is particularly important in the new Health Science business area. Upon realizing this, in addition to developing specialized programs and competencies to raise our ability to understand consumers, we are actively recruiting outside specialists to make a stronger marketing organization at a rapid pace. Furthermore, we utilize our knowledge in the healthcare field to improve business performance by promoting personal exchanges and utilization of human resources among Kyowa Hakko Bio, Fancl, and other operating companies engaged in the Health Science business. We will continue to accelerate our growth through forward-looking human resource development and the strategic utilization of those human resources.

Communication that conveys the significance of tackling the Health Science business

As values are changing in response to rapid environmental changes, it is becoming increasingly important for us to ensure that not only our products and services but also visions and attitudes resonate with and are trusted by consumers. We are strengthening communication to establish awareness regarding the significance of our Group’s commitment to the Health Science business, which contributes to the health of people, through various touchpoints, such as advertisements, websites, and social media. We will work to enhance our corporate brand value by making people aware that we are a partner that stands by society and our customers.

We will continue our efforts to “reinforce growth and collaboration of operating companies,”“accelerate marketing capability improvement,” and “further strengthen human capital development across the Group” through strengthening marketing central capabilities.

From spring 2022, Kirin Holdings established a central function to oversee marketing for the entire Group. We will continue to evolve our marketing organizational capabilities by raising our "ability to understand consumers," which is the foundation of CSV management, to an even higher level throughout the Group.

Contribute to a consistent marketing strategy and initiatives for consumers

In the Health Science domain, which is a focus of our Group, we are developing a consistent marketing strategy by providing direct support to each operating company through the Marketing Central Team. We are uniting our efforts to create consumer-centric value across the Group.

This enables the standardization of marketing activities, which often vary from company to company, allowing the Group to work together to address common market issues set from the consumer’s point of view.

Although mass marketing is possible for the existing Food & Beverages domain, which handles beer and soft drinks and whose markets have already matured, in the Health Science business, the immune health market is not sufficiently developed. This is why we need to tap the potential demand for these products, and to do so, the Group should unite to create value instead of each operating company approaching consumers separately. The Kirin Group has developed and is operating a holistic plan that integrates the entirety of the Group. For the 2022 fall and winter seasons, we have formulated and implemented, for the first time, a marketing plan that comprehensively designs consumer contact points that go beyond the borders of categories and operating companies.

Specifically, we provided consistent marketing activities from advertising and PR to in-store promotions in supermarkets and drug stores by matching the timing and the contents of Kirin Holdings’ Health Science Business Department’s communication for increasing public awareness of immune care and marketing communication for products of Kirin Beverage and Koiwai Dairy Products. We also see business opportunities outside of the epidemic season in winter, the peak season for the immune care products industry, and the Group is working together to create consumer needs in other seasons.

Business strategies over a medium- to long-term perspective are essential to create and develop an immune-care market. Looking not just one year but multiple years ahead, we are working to further enhance our product portfolio by expanding our development pipeline.

Accelerate marketing capability improvement

We are speeding up the growth of operating companies by providing them practical consultations through the Marketing Central Team to help them acquire the expertise needed in the new business domains and to quickly build the organizational capabilities necessary for the businesses’ success.

For example, although Kirin Beverage's “Oishii Immune Care” was developed as a product to mainly be sold in the chilled food section, they did not have enough knowledge about the chilled food & beverage category. That’s why we helped them acquire the necessary knowledge and organizational capabilities by utilizing information on the chilled food & beverage category and chilled food section in sales strategies, in-store promotions, and better business negotiations through the training programs provided by the Marketing Central Team, thereby developing marketing capabilities that the operating companies should have.

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