For us French, accustomed to small texts scrolling at the bottom of the screen “Alcohol abuse is dangerous for health”, this campaign is quite surreal. The Japanese Tax Agency launched a competition this summer to encourage young people to drink more…alcohol! It’s called “Saké Viva”, a festive mix of Spanish and the word “alcohol” in Japanese.
Young people aged 20 to 39 are called upon to come up with ideas, designs, ads, strategies, and even projects with artificial intelligence. The use of sales methods applicable to the metaverse is encouraged. The goal: to make alcohol attractive.
Why such a competition? Because young people are drinking less and less alcohol – unlike their parents and grandparents – and this is creating a hole in the coffers of the State, which heavily taxes bottles. Japan is therefore trying to stimulate the domestic alcohol industry: sake, beer, wine, Shochu and whiskey. The authorities see in the long term, the population is very aging, it is necessary to distill the seed of hops and barley quite early in the minds.
Alcohol tax revenues have been declining for 40 years. In 1980, they represented 5% of state revenue compared to barely 2% in 2020. The phenomenon is therefore not new, but it has increased with the pandemic. A major Japanese beer brand has done its calculations. In 2020, Japanese drank 55 of its bottles on average, down 9.1% from the previous year.
The Japanese we met explain that young people are less party animals, have less money than their elders and that the pandemic has transformed them. The development of teleworking has allowed Japan to break a taboo: that of Nomucation (or Nomication), these drinking parties organized between colleagues and bosses which take place in the evening after work. It’s almost like a rule to follow for several decades. The young people said stop. They no longer want to drink liters of beer with their boss and prefer to go home to see their family. The pandemic and the closing of bars was the perfect pretext.
The competition “Sake Viva” hopes to remedy this and wishes to encourage the consumption of alcohol at home. In Japan, voices are raised against this campaign which promotes unhealthy habits and which is financed by public money. The relationship with alcohol is not the same as in France. In Japan, alcohol is promoted everywhere. Copies are due by September 9. A month later, the winners will be announced.