The Japan Food Product Overseas Promotion Center (JFOODO) is rolling out a new Japanese green tea promotion for the U.S. market. The promotion began in August and features Marie Kondo as the campaign spokesperson. Kondo is the popular tidying expert, best-selling author and Emmy-nominated television star from the Netflix series, “Tidying Up with Marie Kondo.”
The big-picture goal of the JFOODO promotional effort is to support existing online sales channels of green tea in the United States (primarily through Amazon.com) for Japanese businesses.
The JFOODO campaign kicked off with a video (see video here) – featuring Kondo and actress Nikki Reed, who’s also the owner of sustainable lifestyle brand Bayou with Love – demonstrating how to simplify one’s life and mind with Japanese green tea. The promotion includes a website that’s meant to be a hub of information on Japanese green teas and their usage.
JFOODO, founded in 2017 within the Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO), is an organization that devotes its resources to the branding of Japanese agricultural, forestry, fishery and food products. To further boost the export of products, JFOODO works to create a stronger platform for overseas B2C promotions and branding projects that stimulate international demand.
“A Journey to Simplify You”
The theme of the new JFOODO promotional campaign is “A Journey to Simplify You” – which ties into Kondo’s brand – and the campaign’s content depicts everyday mindful moments with Japanese green tea, experienced by Americans across diverse lifestyles. During the course of the marketing effort, JFOODO will share ideas, stories and “masterful techniques” through blog articles and social media content.
In the announcement for the campaign, JFOODO noted that Millennials are interested in mindfulness, so the movement draws attention to Japanese green tea and its high concentration of theanine, which suppresses tension in the central nervous system caused by caffeine and releases tension. JFOODO says that Millennials value green tea’s rich history and the visions and stories surrounding green tea producers.
Green Tea Market in the United States
The U.S. green tea market is currently worth approximately 166.4 million USD, according to JFOODO, and the export value of Japanese green tea to the United States nearly doubled in the last five years to approximately 60 million USD in FY2019. JFOODO notes that the U.S. green tea market is expected to grow in the future.
As the campaign’s spokesperson, Kondo says she regularly drinks Japanese green tea and has had a close relationship with the drink from a young age. She specifically learned about it from her grandmother, a Japanese tea ceremony master.
To learn more about Japanese green tea and the campaign, visit www.jetro.go.jp/en/jfoodo, and watch the campaign video by clicking here.