Sapporo Beer

Introduction of Sapporo Breweries, Ltd.

Sapporo Breweries, Ltd. manufactures and sells not only beer, such as Sapporo Draft Beer Black Label and Yebisu Beer, but also RTD (ready-to-drink), wine, and shochu, as well as importing and selling Western liquors.

The company was founded in 1876 when the Brewery was opened as part of the Hokkaido Development Commission program established by the new Meiji government to develop Hokkaido.

We at Sapporo Beer believe that alcohol exists to enrich the lives of our customers and produce more pleasurable moments.
Since the founding of the original Kaitakushi Beer Brewery, Sapporo Beer has remained unflagging in its commitment and enthusiasm for traditional craftsmanship. Through all of our initiatives, we continue to evolve in new ways and provide value that enriches the lives of our customers.

This is Sapporo Beer’s ongoing mission.
We consider it our goal to be a company that consumers feel confident in and proud to have selected.

Introducing Social Listening

Meltwater was selected because of the need for social listening from a broader data lake of consumers

Meltwater's flagship products, Meltwater Explore, and Radarly, which meet more advanced and challenging demands in social listening, are used by the Media Management Group of the Beer & RTD Division, Marketing Division of Sapporo Breweries, Ltd. The two Radarly customers are Ms. Yosuke Asai and Ms. Wakana Sugiura of the Media Management Group, Beer & RTD Business Department, Marketing Division.

Currently, Ms. Sugiura focuses on "Instagram" and Ms. Asai on other SNS, especially "X" (formerly Twitter), to understand customers through social listening for each brand.

Before we introduced Explore, we had not conducted any social listening. We were watching the response to our posts, but we had not checked how consumers accepted each brand on social networking sites," said Asai.

In our search for a social listening tool, which we considered as a necessary service, was to understand 'how well the world has accepted each brand of beer or RTD, what keywords are being used with this brand, positive and negative reactions, and comparative information with other brands. The goal was to understand 'how well beer, RTD, etc. have been spread by brand, what keywords are used with this brand, positive and negative reactions, and comparative information with other brands.

We chose Meltwater for Alcoholic Brands because the system met these criteria and because we have had a relationship of trust with the company since 2011 in the field of public relations," said Asai.

In December 2021, Meltwater also introduced Radarly.

As consumers shifted from posting text to only images and videos, we felt the need for social listening based on a broader data lake of consumers who had chosen the Sapporo Beer brand, including their consumption scenarios and reasons for purchasing.

Implement consumer insight tools

Meltwater's strength is its strength in AI.
Unraveling brand trends and Sapporo's image through image analysis.

We asked Ms.Sugiura about her impressions of Radarly, which she uses as the primary tool. 

“We have a dashboard feature called the ‘Insights Page’, which is set up to see all the posts for the week, the images for each past month, and the contributors with the highest engagement all at once. We can also set up regular observations of trends for each brand and send snapshots on the Insight Page to planners so they can quickly disseminate information.

We often look at data on our products, such as trending and new products on Instagram. We also use it for many purposes, such as checking the status of other companies' new products when they are launched, and the reaction to our new products within a week of their launch. The picture wall displays all the images, which is easy to understand and is one of my favorite features," said Mr. Sugiura, who found the system easy to use. (Mr. Sugiura)

Furthermore, Mr. Asai commended the high level of responsiveness from the Meltwater account management team. “The customer support is very fast, which is really helpful. For example, when we learn of the launch of a new product from another company at the last minute, we consult with them about the keywords we need to set to search for responses on SNS accurately, and we usually receive the information within one business day. I hope this is not a burden on the person in charge, but it is a very helpful point.” said Mr. Asai

We also asked about the results of using Radarly.

Mr. Asai said that he shares UGC data with the development department. For major promotions, such as new product launches, he distributes reports on what kind of feedback was received in the week before and after, and how it changed over the 2 to 4-week period with those managing the brand, and he can see the results.

“Sapporo’s brand managers and sales representatives also use the data  to map the best times for sales launches .” (Mr. Asai)

Asai further added that Sapporo Beer uses Meltwater for Alcoholic Beverages to understand how the brand is being perceived in the market, and whether it aligns with the values Sapporo wishes to portray so they can respond accordingly. 

He also has high hopes for image analysis, saying, "One of Meltwater's strengths is that we are a strong AI company.

"We want to use image analysis more and more. The amount of exposure our advertisements receive on social networking sites can be used to indicate advertising effectiveness, so we want to be obsessive about it.”

Mr. Asai added, "We regularly communicate the importance of SNS and what we can learn from SNS. The ultimate goal is for each brand manager to understand the importance of SNS and to be able to conduct social listening on their own.

Request from Sapporo Beer

There are still many things we can do with Radarly, and we would like to pursue ways to bring out the potential of SNS.

We asked Sapporo about their future plans and what they would like to do with Meltwater.

“We can do so much more with Radarly and want to explore ways to use social networking to its full potential. says Asai  “We have the following in mind.”

1. Uncover brand-specific purchasing behavior
   Not only by taking a bird's eye view but also by looking at the individual's purchase history, how they came to know about the product, continuity, etc., we can get a hint to unravel the attitude change in purchasing behavior.
   
2. Analyzing SNS data in conjunction with other data
   Understing how POS data, brand recognition data, etc. are related to SNS data can help us to measure the power of SNS.
   
3. Measure the value of advertising effectiveness
   Through tracking the reactions on SNS to street corner vision ads, etc., using image recognition.
   
4. Analyze by category
   To understandtrend not only by brand, but also by category, such as beer, shochu, and liquor.

In addition to the above, Mr. Asai added that there are many more things he would like to do.

“Everyone has a vague understanding of the importance of SNS, but I would like to make it more widely understood, including the logic behind why it is crucial. I think many more functions can be used, and I would like to continue to explore them while learning from others.
We want to use Radarly to brush up on the content we post and further strengthen the power of social networking.”

The historic company will continue to take on the challenge of further growth with Meltwater, accurately identifying customer needs as they change with the times.