Suntory has been giving away a series of eight mini-goods by product designer Amadana with its Boss Silky Black coffee. Targeting design-smart businessmen in their 30s, the all-black and metal products include a USB memory drive cover, a tape measure, a “multi case” the size of an iPhone, a pen holder, a money clip, a bookmark, a “cord reel” for keeping headphone cords neatly in a suit pocket and a memo stand.

Amadana is a brand of luxury household appliances that have a modernist design aesthetic that has grown from niche to mainstream in a short time. Its product lineup includes everything from coffee makers and music systems to paper shredders and mobile phone handsets.

A quick look online shows the collaboration has spawned more than 70,000 blog posts so far this month, with comments suggesting that consumers actively bought BOSS Silky Black in order to collect the Amadana products.

To find out how Five by Fifty helps its clients innovate in the beverage sector, contact us.

A recent campaign by Suntory matches six malt whiskies with six specially made chocolates.

“The French use the word mariage to mean pairing,” explains chef and author Clotilde Dusoulier. “It is used in the case of food and wine (mariages mets et vins), and also between two ingredients (le chocolat se marie bien avec les fruits rouges – “chocolate goes well with red berries)”. In the past two years mariage has appeared in the Japanese lexicon, refering to alcohol match with a complementary sweet, most often chocolate.

Corona beer is now comes with a gift piece of chocolate.

For its current “Malt and Chocolate” campaign, whiskey maker Suntory collaborated with famed chocolatiers in Tokyo to pair six malt whiskeys with six chocolates. Glenfiddich, which Suntory imports to Japan, has been matched with a citrus chocolate, and Suntory’s own 12-year Hakushu is paired with green tea chocolate. The chocolates are not sold with the whiskeys, and are only available at the chocolatiers that produce them, so mariage fans would have to travel to six different locations to sample the full range.

Continuing the mariage trend, Nippon Beer, which imports Corona beer to Japan, is now attaching a piece of bitter, 79% cacao chocolate to Corona bottles available at convenience stores and liquor stores.

The 100ml bottle has a suggested retail price of 190 yen.

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Other House Foods products
House Foods Official Site (Japanese)

But with the growing demand for functional foods by Japanese consumers, the first products that turn the benefit into a brand name are appearing the beverage sector.

Asahi Soft Drinks has released a soft drink that contains the caffeine of two cups of coffee and energy from glucose. The purpose, obviously, is waking people up. No one is likely to miss this, as the name of the product translates as “Emergency Rations for Waking Up,” printed in bold on a bright yellow background.

Other recent example is fuyu no kenko taisaku sui (“winter health care water”) from Akaho Kasei, which claims to boost the immune system, and prevents or helps recover from cold. It contains vitamin C and magnesium, potassium, ginger and yuzu (a Japanese citrus fruit).

Yet another example is Suntory’s gokaku energy (“energy for passing exams”), which contains 6 types of vitamins, glucose sugar, and caffeine. The product claims to provide stamina to students cramming for exams in marathon study sessions, and was launched just in time for the university entrance exams in February.

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Other Asahi Products
Asahi Official Site (Japanese)

In time for Valentine’s Day, Häagen-Dazs Japan has released limited editions of premium chocolates, made with couverture chocolate supplied by Belgian maker Barry Callebaut.

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Other Suntory Products
Häagen-Dazs Japan Official Site (Japanese)

In time for Valentine’s Day, Japanese wine maker Mercian has released a new sparkling wine in its “Cafe de Paris” series, which a chocolate flavor complemented by a slight caramel nuance. The 200ml bottle is sold with a gift box.

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Other Suntory Products
Mercian Official Site (Japanese

Lotte and Suntory have collaborated to release a chocolate bar flavored with premium 12 year old single malt Suntory whiskey from Yamazaki Prefecture. In time for Valentine’s Day, a gift set including a bar of the chocolate and a miniature bottle of Yamazaki 12 Year, is being released for a limited time.

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Other Lotte Products
Other Suntory Products
Suntory Official Site (Japanese)

Suntory has released Calorie Chu-Hai, a chu-hai flavored by mandarins from Ehime Prefecture, Japan, and with 50% less calories than the average of other Suntory fruit juice based chu-hai drinks.

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Other Suntory Products
Suntory Official Site (Japanese)

A few of the numerous zero drinks released in 2008.

Mandatory health checks to combat metabolic syndrome for full-time employees were implemented in April of this year, leaving many people counting calories and carbs. As consumers make decisions based on heightened concerns over health, “zero” products, boasting “zero carbohydrates,” “zero calories,” “zero sugar,” were a hit in 2008.

Zero-sugar ham, bacon, and candies were released, but the busiest sector was the canned drink industry, with a number of “zero sugar” canned coffees and “zero carbohydrate” beers going on the market. Kirin started the trend in February, releasing Kirin Zero, a zero carbohydrate happoshu, and Suntory released Zero Nama (“Zero Draft”) in March. Summer saw the release of a number of zero sugar chu-hai drinks from Kirin and Suntory.

According to a recent Nikkei report, “zero” alcoholic beverages first appeared on the Japanese market in 2006, garnering sales of 1.8 billion yen ($18 million). Sales jumped in 2007 to 36.1 billion yen, boostered by Asahi’s Style Free carb free happoshu, the first hit product in the zero drink market, and sales more than doubled in 2008, to a projected 94.7 billion yen.