Kirin USA, Inc.: Ichiban Shibori
BADM 7100 – Marketing
Dr. Jianan Wu
April 8, 2011

Kirin Brewery Limited founded over 100 years ago in Yokohama, Japan is the largest beer in Japan today. It is also the fourth largest beer firm in the world; however, almost half of its’ market share in 1990 was in Japan. Competitor Asahi entered the market with a super dry beer in 1987 unsettling the field. This new concept of a sharper, less sweet beer with a higher alcohol content appealed to heavy beer drinkers and was very successful in the Japanese market. Asahi overcame Sapporo rising to the title of number three brewer in Japan. Kirin’s answer to Asahi’s super dry beer was a new full bodied beer with no aftertaste called Ichiban Shibori. Sales response was very impressive and fueled Kirin’s interest in the U.S. market. First, the U.S. had a high proportion of import beers in their market, and second, Kirin was in second place behind Sapporo in the U.S. market.

U.S. operations began in 1983, and Kirin USA, Inc. was born. At that time only 3% of the 184 million barrels of beer consumed in the U.S. was imported. In 1987, a 2% increase in imports coincided with a 3 million barrel consumption increase. This prompted agreements with Molson USA and Martlet to diversify their marketing campaign. Print media and radio spots were targeted in Los Angeles and New York City where the majority of Kirin’s U.S. customer base lived. Before and after recall tests confirmed what little impact these efforts were having. Kirin decided to rely primarily on their sales force. Motivation for success was fierce, for a couple of reasons. The number one beer in Japan could not also be the number two Japanese beer in the U.S. The cultural implications for Japanese businessmen living in America consuming a second place Japanese beer did not sit well with Kirin. However, the