Branding: Early blitz from Asahi as Kirin eyes Thailand

Asahi will dig in its heels by emphasising its 'Japanese-ness' in a market where Japanese fashion, food and music have achieved enormous popularity, said Shinichiro Kimura, general manager for Asahi Breweries Asia-Pacific.

The 12-month campaign aims to create a Japanese culture of beer drinking in a way similar to how Corona beer made it fashionable to drink beer with a wedge of lemon, and to link Asahi firmly to it.

The year-long 'J-Trend J-Station' campaign will include advertising, PR, and sales promotions, targeting young trend setters between 20 and 35 years old.

The campaign will include print ads in men's and teen magazines, as well as a poster and BTS campaigns featuring Japanese models, and bearing the tagline 'The Trendy Beer from Japan', a spokesman from ad agency Hakuhodo said. Below-the-line activities will meanwhile focus around the 'Asahi J-Trend J-Station' at Bangkok's trendy Suan Lum night bazaar.

The brand is also exploring music marketing, with studies underway on whether jazz or hip-hop is likely to work better with its target audience.

Sales promotions will meanwhile be targeted at restaurants - Asahi currently sells its beer via 30 Japanese restaurants, and has exclusive deals with some 50 pubs across Thailand. It is hoping to make a greater impact in the cities of Phuket, Hat Yai, Chiang Mai, Khon Kaen and Udon Thani.

"Thailand's beer market is growing rapidly, and we expect the total beer market will continue to increase around 10 per cent each year," said Kimura. "For Asahi, we are aiming to double total sales this year over 2003."

A relative newcomer in Thailand, having only entered the market in 2002, Asahi is projecting 1.3 billion baht in sales this year, three billion baht next year and, eventually, a 10 per cent stake in the eight billion baht premium segment.

The segment is currently more than 80 per cent dominated by Heineken, and has been extremely active the last couple of years, with the 2003 reentry of Kloster beer, the recent exit of number two player Carlsberg and the planned entry of not only Kirin but the Philippines' leading player San Miguel.

The total beer market is estimated at 81 billion baht this year.