ITOCHU and FamilyMart Establish a New Company for In-Store Media Business
August 19, 2021
ITOCHU Corporation (headquartered in Minato-ku, Tokyo; Keita Ishii, President & COO; hereinafter “ITOCHU”) announced today that ITOCHU and FamilyMart Co., Ltd. (headquartered in Minato-ku, Tokyo; Kensuke Hosomi, Representative Director and President; hereinafter "FamilyMart") have agreed to establish a new company for in-store media business with digital signages.
1. Background to the Establishment of the New Company
Importance of marketing measures by mixing real-stores and digital-tools are growing. In the United States, leading retailers are launching in-store media business to obtain new revenue sources. Digital-out-of-home is becoming a new major tool for advertisers in Japan as well.
FamilyMart domestically operates approximately 16,600 stores, where total 450 million customers visit per month. Seeing the traffic of our customer as significant asset for media, ITOCHU and FamilyMart started a proof-of concept in September 2020. Having confirmed the results were as expected, we decided to proceed to full-scale business, operated by a new company. In addition to the advertising effect and the influence on purchases, our in-store media can also help community through prevention of crimes; for instance, by delivering content for alerting bank transfer frauds.
2. Business Activities of the New Company and the Each Partner Company’s Role
Our new company is going to install large-sized multiple digital signages at FamilyMart stores and to deliver various kinds of contents such as entertainment, art, news, local information which are attractive and useful to our customers. Also, our new company aims to build advanced advertising services through delivering contents by area and time, and visualizing advertising effectiveness such as viewing rates and purchases at stores. In addition, the new company creates new advertising services for clients, through mutual cooperation with Data One, Corp. (headquartered in Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo; Hidetoshi Ota, President; hereinafter "Data One") founded in October 2020, and their digital ads services utilizing customer’s purchasing data. At the first phase we are planning to install digital signages at 3,000 stores until spring 2022. This enables us to reach 82 million customers per month. Thereafter we are going to expand it to all stores which can be installed in 2024 and bring our customers new experience.
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ITOCHU supports the new company forming strategic partnership with other retailers such as supermarket chains, drug store chains and other business fields with its broad network.
FamilyMart aims to upgrade customer experience by fully utilizing store spaces and delivering useful information. Also aims to increase franchisee’s revenue by developing new media business.
Overview of the New Company
| Operating Start Date | October 2021 (Planned) |
|---|---|
| Business Activities | In-store media business with digital signages |
| Capital | 990 million yen (including capital reserves of 495 million yen) |
| Investment ratio | FamilyMart：70%, ITOCHU：30% |
Company Information
◆ ITOCHU Corporation
| Headquarters | 2-5-1 Kita-Aoyama, Minato-ku, Tokyo |
|---|---|
| Established | December 1, 1949 |
| Representative | Yoshihisa Suzuki, President & COO |
| Capital | 253,448 million yen |
| Business Activities | Domestic trading, import/export and third‐country trading of various products such as textiles, machinery, metals, energy, chemicals, food, general products, information and finance, as well as business investments in Japan and overseas. |
◆FamilyMart Co., Ltd.
| Headquarters | 3-1-21 Shibaura, Minato-ku, Tokyo |
|---|---|
| Established | September 1, 1981 |
| Representative | Kensuke Hosomi, Representative Director and President |
| Capital | 16,659 million yen |
| Business Activities | Franchise system-based convenience store business |
| Number of Stores | 24,952 (16,645 in Japan, 8,307 overseas; as of end of July 2021) |
◆Data One Corp.
| Headquarters | 17 Floor, Kasumigaseki Building, 3-2-5 Kasumigaseki, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo |
|---|---|
| Established | October 27, 2020 |
| Representative | Hidetoshi Ota, President |
| Business Activities | Digital advertising distribution business and advertising agency business utilizing data possessed by retailers |
| Capital | 990 million yen (including capital reserves of 495 million yen) |
| Investment ratio | IFP Inc.: 55% (ITOCHU ：55%, FamilyMart: 45% investments, respectively), NTT Docomo: 40%, CyberAgent: 5% |