ITOCHU Corporation (headquartered in Minato-ku, Tokyo; Keita Ishii, President & COO; hereinafter “ITOCHU”) announced today that it has built, verified, and launched a system for digital advertising based on consumers’ taste preferences (hereinafter “the advertising service”) after providing Data One Corp. (headquartered in Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo: Fuyuki Kokuryu, President and Chief Executive Officer; hereinafter “Data One”), which runs a digital advertising business that utilizes retailer purchasing data, with the “personalized food recommendation function”*1 that was launched in November 2023.

The advertising service aims to improve customer experiences for food and beverage manufacturers by utilizing data based on individual consumers’ taste preferences so as to optimize advertising solutions. The kansei (taste) data based on taste preferences are obtained with the help of taste sensor technology and taste data-based food pairing analysis technology from Taste & Aroma Strategic Research Institute Co., Ltd., which is engaged in digital solutions for food technology based on taste data and other forms of kansei engineering data.

In recent times, the advertising service has been implemented with the goal of improving customer experiences of “Sapporo Otoko Ume Sour,” sold by Sapporo Breweries Ltd. More specifically, we quantified the taste of “Sapporo Otoko Ume Sour” using taste sensor technology to predict and diagnose what consumer taste preferences the product is suited for. Moreover, we identified products that people with that taste preference frequently purchase and ran promotional advertisements that linked those products with the product in question. As a result, about 30% of consumers who viewed the advertisement and purchased the product were new users who had not bought “Sapporo Otoko Ume Sour” in the past year. We also saw an increase in click-through and purchase rates compared to conventional advertising. (Please refer to the figure below for the concrete implementation process.)

Running the advertising service allowed us to confirm that advertising appealing to taste helps spread awareness to and promote purchases by users who could not previously be research, while also leading to higher click-through and purchase rates for the advertisements, which is why the decision was made to provide “co-buy® Taste Preference Targeting” as one of the services on “co-buy®,”*2 which is Data One’s advertising platform that makes use of purchase data. From taste analysis to advertising and then purchasing analysis, Data One’s account planner offers a one-stop service.

Under the management policy "The Brand-new Deal – Profit opportunities are shifting downstream –," ITOTHU aims to expand business areas by capturing consumer's needs as they diversify with social changes and by pioneering and evolving downstream businesses that are closer to the consumers. Proactively using kansei data such as taste sense information and offering marketing support, ITOCHU will build optimal relationships between client enterprises and consumers and serve as a partner to expand businesses together with clients.