In the 1989 US box office hit “Back to the Future II,” time traveler Marty McFly asked for a Pepsi Perfect at the futuristic 1980s Café in Hill Valley. It is an emblematic moment of product placement.
But if you look closely at another scene in which McFly appears in the long run, a video convention with a colleague in 2015, some other logo appears.
This drink is called Pocari Sweat. And despite its call, unsentimental to English speakers, it is a Japanese sports drink well known in Asia and the Middle East.
Although the film’s creators participated in a product placement agreement with Pocari Sweat, they had given their artistic branch a general directive to include Japanese elements in scenes illustrating 2015, says Bob Gale, the manufacturer and screenwriter of Back to the Future II. “
“In the past 1980s, Japanese corporations bought many American corporations, adding Sony buying Columbia Pictures and Panasonic buying Universal. Japanese video games were the market leaders, Japanese cars promoted more than American cars, and we thought this trend would continue well in the future,” Says Gale.
The Japanese force of the 1980s did not last, but Pocari was a force in the sports beverage market.
Last year, 270 million bottles were distributed in more than 20 countries and regions. Approximately the same number was distributed in Japan, according to Otsuka Pharmaceutical, the Japanese company that manufactures it. Amid the pandemic, the company donated more than 1.2 million bottles to hospitals and governments in their markets.
Launched in 1980, Pocari Sweat is stimulated through the rehydrating effects of an intravenous solution. Ingredients come with water, sugar, citric acid, magnesium, calcium and sodium. Pocari restores water and electrolytes, a set of minerals your body wants to serve, lost through perspiration.
Drinking is for many Asians what Gatorade is to Americans and Lucozade for the British.
But the brand, which this year turns 40, is unknown in the West.
Pocari’s story begins with Rokuro Harima, an Otsuka worker who suffered food poisoning during a business holiday in Mexico in the 1970s.
At the hospital, doctors told Harima to fill his power with comfortable drinks. But when Harima, a doctor, drank from an intravenous solution bag to rehydrate after surgery, he had an idea.
Otsuka has also been generating intravenous responses for hospitals since 1946. Harima put two together: he sought to create a tasty and drinkable infusion.
In the 1960s, he helped refine the taste of Otsuka’s “Oronamin C,” a comfortable nutritious drink for tired businessmen who needed a little help at noon. Now, the “king of taste”, as his companions called him, with the aim of creating a new market in Japan.
Gatorade had been in the United States since the 1960s. But in Japan in the 1970s, sports drinks were uncharted territory.
According to the Japan Soft Drinks Association (JSDA), comfortable beverages such as Coca-Cola and Mitsuya cider and orange and apple juices dominated the domestic market.
But as Japanese administrative staff boosted Japan’s economic boom, families have gained purchasing power. People have become more aware of fitness and Coca-Cola sales have declined, according to Mark Pendergrast, director of “God, Country and Coca-Cola.” Harima got to work.
Back in the lab, he and a team of researchers discovered that sweat concentration is different for other people who play sports compared to those who were simply living their day. They were looking for a drink, with houses that seemed to sweat, that could moisturize other people no matter what they did.
The researchers developed dozens of prototypes, but they all tasted too bitter. The breakthrough came when they added a splash of powdered citrus juice to their translucent solution, refining the two-sample formula with other sugar levels.
Researchers tested these responses by climbing a mountain in Tokushima Prefecture in southern Japan, said Jeffrey Gilbert, Otsuka’s spokesman. They concluded that the edition with less candy is greater with the exercise.
The Pocari Sweat formula is born. All they needed was a call and a logo.
With his literal nod to sweat, the so-called Pocari Sweat surprised many English speakers. The first component of your call selected by your sound. “Pocari” seems vaguely European and is simple to pronounce but it makes no sense,” Gilbert says.
While Japan absorbed Western influences after World War II, European languages were elegant and exotic. English slogans adorned everything from billboards to T-shirts, lunchboxes and pencil cases.
The word “sweat” expresses the usefulness of drinking.
In the 1980s, soft and carbonated maximum drinks were sold in ambitious red, orange and white packaging, according to JSDA. However, given the maximum turnover rate at the Japanese beverage market, Akihiko Otsuka, then president of Otsuka Pharmaceutical, knew he had to make a statement. Reminiscent of ocean waves, Pocari’s cold blue and white blanket is an atypical case in terms of design.
It is a threat designed to attract the attention of curious consumers.
Pocari Sweat was not a weathering fate when it landed at Japanese retail outlets in 1980. “Because this category of drinks didn’t exist in Japan, other people didn’t know what to do with it,” Gilbert says.
He lacked the dark color of Coca-Cola and the Coca-Cola sparkling caramel feature. Nor was Suntory’s Regain energy drink, which attracted entrepreneurs who were able to paint 24 hours a day. Instead, Pocari Sweat promised to keep other people hydrated.
Initial marketing campaigns aimed at dehydration risks. The tv ads and posters were aimed at everyone from hangovers to sports enthusiasts.
For several years, the company distributed loose samples in saunas and events. The vendors went door-to-door to publicize him.
“At the time, Japan did not have as many supermarkets or vending machines as it does today. Shoppers bought drinks at family and popular stores, so Otsuka made an effort to succeed in others and familiarize them with The taste and function of Pocari,” says Kiyomi Kai, a spokesperson for JSDA.
Despite the difficulty in getting started, Gilbert says quitting is not an option. “Otsuka is very, very sticky and persevering in what he does, whether in the aspect of drugs and in the client; is deepening and stays there,” he says.
In the end, their efforts paid off. In the mid-1990s, Pocari Sweat was the first non-alcoholic beverage produced in Japan to achieve a cumulative shipping price of more than $1 billion.
Sold basically in the warm countries of Asia and the Middle East, Gilbert says the moisturizing message of Pocari products, which now come with powder and jelly, is aimed at those markets. Private traders also sell the drink in Western countries.
But Otsuka dreamed of dominating the West.
In 1983, Gatorade had 86.5% of the sports beverage market in the United States. In Otsuka’s eyes, Western markets were saturated, Gilbert says.
Otsuka had exported its IV responses to Japan’s neighbors since the 1960s, so it made sense to send them to destinations near Japan than air transportation to the United States. In addition, the corporate did not have to pay for expensive surfaces in U.S. supermarkets.
Pocari Sweat was introduced to Japan when the economy exploded. Otsuka predicted that the point of economic expansion would extend across Asia.
By the 1980s, anti-World War II sentiment toward Japan, which had colonized many parts of Asia, had gradually declined in the region. Japan is now considered a viable trading partner.
The drink reached the shelves of Hong Kong and Taiwan in 1982 and to Singapore, Bahrain, Oman and Saudi Arabia the following year, as in many other markets in the following decades.
Long-term investment in the Asia and Gulf markets has paid off.
Before the coronavirus pandemic, the Asian economic zone, stretching from the Arabian Peninsula to Australia, accounted for 50% of global GDP and two-thirds of global economic growth, according to Parag Khanna of “The Future Is Asian.”
The purchasing force of the region rises and Pocari Sweat is well positioned to ride the wave.
Otsuka has noticed massive prospects in Indonesia, a country of 273 million inhabitants, which is now the largest open-air company market in Japan. But Otsuka knew he needed to reconsider his market strategy for the Muslim-majority nation.
For example, there was no point in promoting Pocari Sweat among Indonesians as a way to rehydrate after bathing or hangover, as they did in Japan and the Philippines.
In Indonesia, other people take showers that bathe. And because Islam forbids alcohol, there is no Indonesian word for “wooden slout,” says Yoshihiro Bando, CEO of the Indonesian Otsuka branch, in a 2015 YouTube video.
Otsuka aimed to create a niche in the gaming and fitness care community. But even then, the drink only took off when doctors started it as an emergency tonic.
In 2010, a dengue epidemic swept through Indonesia. In that year, the rate of occurrence was higher than more than 80 people per 100,000 people more, compared to 60 last year.
Symptoms of dengue come with vomiting, high fever and internal bleeding in severe cases. Patients want to stay hydrated because it allows platelets (tiny blood cells that form clots in the body to prevent bleeding) to mature.
In identifying an opportunity in the market, Otsuka has partnered with fitness experts and government officials to publicize the wetting powers of pocari Sweat. Health workers have begun proposing to their patients dehydration, according to researchers at Telkom University in Indonesia.
As an important stimulant of hydration, Pocari has been known as a “first aid form” – deployed in combat opposite everything from dengue to diarrhea.
But The symbol of Pocari soon changed.
As of 2016, a popular activity was carried out among Indonesians, according to the Jakarta-based advertising firm Olrange. He partnered with Otsuka between 2015 and 2018 to produce a series of campaigns to increase the appeal of Pocari Sweat.
Along with sports campaigns called #SafeRunning and Born to Sweat, Olrange has harnessed the merits of Japanese pop culture to attract young consumers.
In 2018, Olrange presented a series of online videos, called “Indonesia’s top kawaii (cute) Internet series, with Haruka Nakagawa and Yukari Sasou, two Japanese Pocari Sweat ambassadors and popular celebrities in Indonesia.”
He has “captivated” Indonesians, says Stephanie Putri Fajar, Olrange’s account manager.
“We gave them (Nakagawa and Sasou) a platform to paint the active lives of other young people who lose ions (sweat) through a six-part series of YouTube friendship and adventures called ‘Onigiri The Series’,” explains Putri Fajar.
The videos show young friends sharing rice balls, going to school, hanging out and experiencing teenage life while playing songs full of background life.
This appeal to other young people is the driving force behind Otsuka’s strategy because it promotes domestic and foreign markets, according to Tomomi Fujikawa, an analyst at Euromonitor International.
Four decades ago, there were five types of soft drinks, a category jsDA says includes soft drinks as well as teas and mineral water, competing for the area at the beverage market in Japan. But the category has grown a lot since then.
In 2019, there were 6491 types of comfortable beverages on sale in Japan and corporations brought 1,074 new products, according to JSDA. All compete for a coveted area at convenience outlets across the country and around five million ATMs, said Kai, the JSDA spokeswoman.
In Japan, Pocari Sweat is stored in convenience stores, vending machines, supermarkets and pharmacies. Although ubiquity helps, Otsuka has worked hard to make the logo relevant, says Roy Larke, a marketing professor at Waikato University in New Zealand.
For example, in 2020, Otsuka recruited virtual pop star Hatsune Miku as logo ambassador before the now-deferred Summer Olympics to attract a new generation of young people.
This refreshing cycle of Pocari Sweat, which is true to its blue and white look and hydration message, has allowed the logo to thrive.
“Some brands are designed specifically for the convenience store market, so they have a lifespan of 3 to six months for a specific recipe, but Pocari Sweat is like that,” says Larke, who is also the publisher of the japanConsuming data site.
“It’s a long-term sustainable logo that Otsuka has developed over the past 50 years, and today it’s this staying power and a long history in Japan that has maintained it.”
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