Allied Architects Holds Special Conference Featuring Orbis, Osaka Gas, Sumitomo Mitsui Card, Ya-Emon Gibei, Pokka Sapporo, and Qsai

Allied Architects, Inc. (Headquarters: Shibuya-ku, Tokyo; President and CEO: Masato Muraoka; Stock Code: 6081; hereinafter "the Company"), which designs marketing communications using the power of data and creativity and supports companies' marketing AX, held a special conference themed "Data x Creative Summit" on Friday, June 12, welcoming representatives from Orbis Co., Ltd., Osaka Gas Co., Ltd. (FitDish), Sumitomo Mitsui Card Co., Ltd. (V-Trip), Ya-Emon Gibei Co., Ltd., Pokka Sapporo Food & Beverage Ltd., and Qsai Co., Ltd. The conference focused on marketing strategies that fuse data and creativity.

About the "Data x Creative Summit"

The "Data x Creative Summit" is an event that invites executives and marketing managers from companies actively implementing marketing strategies that combine data and creativity, to share their specific initiatives and insights. On the day, four sessions were held, discussing the latest case studies on brand growth and communication design, starting from customer understanding.

Session Highlights

<Session 1 | Featuring Orbis Co., Ltd. and Osaka Gas Co., Ltd. (FitDish)> The Correct Approach to Understanding Customers and the Behind-the-Scenes of Business Transformation

This session featured Soichiro Maeda, Manager of the Direct Branding Department at Orbis Co., Ltd., Nana Suzuki, from the Energy Plus Project in the Energy Solution Business Department at Osaka Gas Co., Ltd., and moderated by Toshiyasu Nishii, Representative Director of Synchro Inc. and advisor to our company. They discussed the necessity of "redefining" marketing faced by both companies and their implementation processes.

Orbis shared their experience of delving deeper into customer insights through N1 interviews and heatmap analysis to break away from an overemphasis on "affordability and value" due to rising CPA. Based on the discovery that "whether customers want to use a product long-term, rather than its price, determines LTV," they are proceeding with creative renewal to enhance perceived quality, and shared the reality of organizational transformation where advertising communication at the initial touchpoint is being re-evaluated as a brand investment.

From Osaka Gas's FitDish, a three-step process of CEPs Listening®, asking surveys, and triangular testing was introduced to uncover customers' true feelings. The session detailed the process of discovering a new brand message, shifting from appeals of "reduced effort and convenience" to "food insurance to keep stocked in the refrigerator." The shared insight, common to both companies, that "data serving as the basis for decision-making leads to team unity," resonated with the participants.

<Session 2 | Featuring Sumitomo Mitsui Card Co., Ltd. (V-Trip)> Conquering Both Awareness and Acquisition: The New Creative Equation Starting with CEPs

In this session, moderated by Ryo Tanaka, Manager of the Communication Design Department at our company's Brand Growth Division, and featuring Yasunori Fukuda, Product Owner of the Business Planning Unit at Sumitomo Mitsui Card Co., Ltd., an integrated approach to awareness and acquisition through CEPs-driven creative design was presented.

The session demonstrated how consistent communication, without segmenting awareness and acquisition measures, can be achieved by designing messages starting from "the moments when customers think of the brand." The practical wisdom that message design rooted in customer insights, rather than mere media optimization, leads to improved ROI, garnered significant positive feedback from participants.

<Session 3 | Featuring Ya-Emon Gibei Co., Ltd. and Pokka Sapporo Food & Beverage Ltd.> Turning "Customer Voices" into Winning Strategies - Ya-Emon Gibei x Pokka Sapporo Discuss CEPs-Driven Communication Strategy

This session featured Yuya Tamura, Marketing Manager at Ya-Emon Gibei Co., Ltd., Ryo Higo, Group Leader of the Advertising & Sales Promotion Group in the Brand Management Department at Pokka Sapporo Food & Beverage Ltd., and moderated by Yuji Imaizaki, Deputy Manager of our company's Account Planning Division. The process of connecting VOC (Voice of Customer) collection to CEPs design and creative production was discussed with specific performance metrics.

Ya-Emon Gibei shared a case study where extracting CEPs from thousands of reviews and developing them into TikTok videos led to the creation of a new market context of "casual gifts."

Pokka Sapporo shared their initiative where designing CEPs based on analysis of natural social media conversations and reflecting them in creative content resulted in the highest shipment volume ever for "Pokka Lemon 100." The evolution from "a few loud voices" in the traditional customer service department to a method of grasping the reality of the entire market through natural social media conversations attracted participants' attention as an "unprecedented way of analysis."

<Session 4 | Featuring Qsai Co., Ltd.> The Era of Winning with Advertising is Over. Designing a "Structure of Continuous Understanding" Management to Survive the AI Era: KAKUHEN/KAKUSHIN -- Qsai's Challenge, the Full Picture of Growth OS

This session featured Atsushi Yamada, Senior Executive Officer and General Manager of the Sales Strategy Division at Qsai Co., Ltd., Hiroyuki Komoriya, Executive Officer and Deputy General Manager of the Sales Strategy Division, and moderated by our company's President and CEO, Masato Muraoka. They discussed the full scope of large-scale marketing transformation, starting from the reality that with the spread of AI, purchasing processes are changing, and "just selling" is no longer enough to be chosen.

The concept of "Growth OS," which integrates multiple types of data such as VOC, purchase data, and behavioral data, and incorporates AI-driven rapid hypothesis testing loops into the management system, was systematically explained. The session also provided the insight that having a structure for continuously deepening customer understanding, beyond the limitations of traditional marketing dependent on experience and individual judgment, leads to a company's competitive advantage. This session, which garnered the interest of many participants across various industries and business types, was a fitting conclusion to the conference.

Participant Feedback

We received numerous comments from participants, such as the following:

- "It was very helpful to hear directly from companies without a sales pitch, which is rare." - "It was very easy to understand because it focused on customer understanding, and the consistency made it easy to follow." - "Hearing case studies from other companies made the application image more concrete." - "I got the impression that incorporating customer understanding into the business structure will lead to future competitive advantage." - "The content was highly satisfying, at a level not heard in general seminars." - "There were parts that overlapped with our company's challenges, and I felt we need to do more in terms of specific approaches and methods for improving customer resolution."

Participants from a wide range of industries shared that they gained hints for solving common issues such as, "I know the concept of CEPs but don't know how to implement it in measures," "We can collect VOC but haven't reached the stage of utilizing it for decision-making or strategy formulation," "We have challenges connecting qualitative and quantitative customer insights," and "We want to permeate the organization with data-driven creative design."

Concluding the "Data x Creative Summit"

What was particularly impressive about this conference was that each company not only discussed methodologies for "how to listen to customer voices" but also shared their execution phases, connecting those voices to creative and organizational transformation with concrete processes and results.

The conference realistically conveyed, through its four sessions, the reality that the shift from intuition-based decision-making to a data-driven structural approach is transforming not just the improvement of measures, but the very growth model of organizations and businesses.

We will continue to drive marketing transformation based on customer voices and strive to contribute to the development of the entire industry through our business activities.

About Kaname.ax®︎

"Kaname.ax®︎" is a data platform that discovers "insightful starting points" for communication from accumulated customer voice (VOC) data and supports companies in designing their marketing communications. By collecting and integrating customer voices from multiple perspectives, such as SNS posts, reviews, EC purchaser surveys, and research panel results, and analyzing them uniformly with AI, it outputs data analysis results in a format adaptable to the Who x What x How marketing framework and CEPs.

Service Site: https://service.aainc.co.jp/kaname-ax

Representative

Chairman and Representative Director: Hiroshi Tanaka President and CEO: Masato Muraoka

Location

Unozawa Tokyu Building 4F, 1-19-15 Ebisu, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo

URL

https://www.aainc.co.jp

Established

August 30, 2005

Business Activities

Marketing AX Business, Asset AX Business

About Allied Architects, Inc.

Allied Architects, Inc. is an AX company that promotes AX (AI Transformation), redesigning conventional business structures with an AI premise to achieve sustainable corporate growth.

It operates a "Marketing AX Business" that transforms marketing with data x creativity utilizing AI, and an "Asset AX Business" that aims to increase asset value through AX in the on-chain economic sphere.

Since its founding in 2005, the company has accumulated over 6,000 marketing support achievements, customer voice data assets including UGC, and proprietary SaaS and AI technologies. Bringing together digital and AI human resources responsible for everything from strategy planning to creative, operation, and development, it continues to challenge itself as a group of planners and creators who constantly transform themselves, aiming for "a society where the creativity of people and companies around the world circulates."

*1 This service uses proprietary AI technology to analyze customer voices from UGC on social media and EC reviews incorporated into "Kaname.ax" to derive the triggers for purchasing or using products/brands (CEPs: Category Entry Points).

*2 Voice of Customer: Refers to customer feedback.

* Company names and product/service names mentioned in this press release are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.