The adaptation of traditional Japanese Liquor makers in the changing of marketing environment

Abstract

There have been severe competitions in Japanese liquor market. Traditional Japanese liquor, Sake and Shochu, is called Kokushu or Japanese national liquor which is considered as an important Japanese liquor industry. Japanese government has supported it for a long time, but at present, there is a decrease of traditional Japanese liquor consumption in their country. Due to the changes of marketing environment such as the becoming of aging society, healthy trends, and the long recessions in Japan impacting the Japanese people’s expenses. Many Japanese have rarely consumed the traditional Japanese liquor. These changes affect the Japanese alcohol drinking culture, the traditional Japanese liquor distribution structure, and the decreased number of traditional Japanese liquor master brewers (Touji). However, there are some traditional Japanese liquor brewers have succeeded in their businesses.  They have used many adaptive strategies to survive in Japanese alcohol market. The strategies are to make the differences of products, to expand the target market to teenagers and women customers, to change the product images to match with the new target group, to expand the traditional Japanese liquor market to overseas countries, to use suitable distribution channels, to promote the traditional Japanese liquor breweries in tourism, to create the new drinking culture with traditional Japanese liquor,  and to build the cooperation among the traditional Japanese liquor brewers to exchange the new manufacturing technology and raw materials.