Oishi and Ichitan heat up green-tea market with major summer campaigns

Despite their similarity, the campaigns will heat up competition in the Bt10-billion local market, especially during the peak season for health beverages.

Oishi Group wants to regain market share, which shrank from more than 60 per cent to 58 per cent in the last three months of last year due to the massive floods, which damaged its green-tea factory in Nava Nakorn Industrial Estate, Ayutthaya, and caused a huge shortage of its products.

The company yesterday unveiled a new mega-marketing campaign to underline its market leadership. This summer, Oishi has budgeted more than Bt150 million to organise its most impressive campaign of the year.

The "Oishi Pai Tae Tua Tour Yok Gang 555" campaign will take lucky customers and their "gang of five" on trips to explore Japan, with Bt500,000 in pocket money for each group. Each of the trips will be hosted by a different leading Thai celebrity.

The campaign is scheduled to run from today until June 15.

"Our priority is to get the plant to resume normal production as soon as possible so that we can meet unserved demand for Oishi green teas in the market place," said Aniruth Mahathorn, executive vice president of beverage division, Oishi Group. "We want to return our market share back to over 60 per cent by the end of this year."

Aniruth said that the factory would return to normal capacity next month, producing about 45 million units per month in PET bottles, 18 million units in cans and 30 million units in UHT packages. The factory is now running at only 50 per cent of its normal capacity.

He added that the overall ready-to-drink green-tea market grew 20 per cent to about Bt8.8 billion last year. The market is expected to grow at the same pace to about Bt11 billion this year.

Meanwhile, Tan Passakornnatee, CEO of Mai Tan, producer of Ichitan green tea, said the company is spending about Bt70 million on its Japan trip campaign, "Ichitan Tour Yok Gang: Travel with Tan, Fun with Nose", which is aimed at stimulating summer sales of its green-tea products.

Tan is the creator of the big-hit campaign "Tour Yok Gang", which made green-tea beverages popular among Thai consumers when he launched the campaign about five years ago at the time he was the top executive of Oishi Group.

He has launched a similar summer-campaign theme this year at Ichitan.

Running from March 1 to May 31, the campaign offers 30 big prizes for 120 people to take a trip to Japan, include airfare, accommodation and meals plus coverage of all withholding taxes and passport fees. In addition, members of the winning teams will each be awarded Bt100,000 for shopping.

"Driven by this signature summer campaign, we expect to earn not less than Bt1 billion in sales during the summer season, and to become the second leader in the local green-tea market with about a 20-per-cent market share," he said. "We expect Ichitan to earn Bt3 billion in sales for the full year."

Aniruth said competition in Thailand’s green-tea market this year was more aggressive than ever, with health beverages continuing to be popular.

He said Oishi, as the widely recognised market leader, remained determined to create innovative products with excellent marketing strategies to respond to the needs of all customer groups.

Earlier this year, the company modernised its brand image to make it more colorful and vibrant and bring it closer to new-generation consumers, he said, adding that the first product launched with this new image was Oishi canned green tea, which is the first of its kind in Thailand.

Moreover, Oishi developed new labels for its green-tea PET bottles in a striking Japanese style, marking the first update of its kind by the company in eight years.

Anurith said this new look reflected Oishi’s vibrant new image as a maker of premium health drinks that are both natural and modern, a winning formula that the company expects will win the hearts of young consumers.

"One of Oishi’s marketing highlights for the upcoming summer, usually the high season for the beverage market, is the ‘Oishi Pai Tae Tua Tour Yok Gang 555’ campaign, for which we have allowed a substantial budget of more than Bt150 million.

"This huge campaign has already been running for five years, and it has successfully contributed to underscoring our leadership in Thailand’s green-tea market. It is one way we can thank our customers whose support has made Oishi Thailand’s No-1 green tea with an impressive market share of 58 per cent. We are confident that this mega-campaign will contribute to increasing sales by 25 per cent, as planned," said the executive.