Asobica's Challenge: Transforming Corporate Decision-Making to Be "Customer-Centric" Using Data as the Core

This series features interviews between Dentsu Inc. employees supporting startups and entrepreneurs, executives, investors, CMOs, and others, exploring how they overcame challenges encountered during the growth of their companies and businesses.

This installment features guest Koya Imada, CEO of Asobica. Asobica provides "coorum," a one-stop solution that supports companies from acquiring to utilizing customer data, transforming decision-making to be customer-centric, under the mission " To color the world with playful passion."

He discussed with Dentsu Inc. Shunsuke Takai the growing importance of customer understanding and communities in recent years, the challenges companies face when introducing community platforms, and the Asobica × Dentsu Inc. initiative addressing these challenges.

Communities are a treasure trove of "experience data" and "psychological data" essential for customer understanding

Takai: Today, we've invited Mr. Imada, who tackles corporate challenges starting with community platforms, to discuss the growing importance and potential of "communities." First, could you explain the broader context behind why communities have become so crucial for business?

Imada: First, a major trend is the growing focus on a customer-centric approach. For instance, as environments enabling pre-purchase research have matured, "brand-specific purchases" are increasing over impulse buys, amplifying the importance of word-of-mouth and UGC. Furthermore, as services become more commoditized, the emphasis has shifted to building stronger customer relationships. Additionally, with population decline making new customer acquisition increasingly difficult, maximizing Lifetime Value (LTV) has become crucial. The key to all of this lies in achieving a " deep understanding of customers."

Takai: I see. So, initiatives that enhance the customer experience by fundamentally understanding customers are now required.

Imada: Exactly. To deeply understand customers, we need to know where they find satisfaction and where they have dissatisfaction with products and services. For example, companies likely collect and analyze attribute data, purchase data, and web logs. However, achieving deep customer understanding requires more than just data from "before purchase" or "the moment of purchase. " It's essential to alsocollect and analyze "experience data" and "psychological data" – such as how customers use the product after purchase and what changes in their feelings occur before and after use.

Imada: While there's been a recent surge in using apps and media to collect customer data, the reality is that the data obtained primarily focuses on pre-purchase and purchase moments, making it quite difficult to deeply understand post-purchase experiences and feelings. I believe the optimal way to gather this "experience data" and "psychological data" is through community-based engagement. This is because communities naturally attract people who have purchased and are actively using the products or services.

Furthermore, by cross-referencing purchase data and psychological data using the user IDs of those in the community, we can identify loyal customers (ideal customers) who are crucial for our company. Utilizing this data with user consent enables us to analyze the behavior, purchasing patterns, and psychology of loyal customers, as well as measure the effectiveness of initiatives aimed at increasing their numbers.

Takai: From a marketing perspective, I believe the need to "deeply understand customers" has likely existed for a long time. However, the means to achieve it were lacking. Traditional commercials and advertisements were one-way communication channels, making it impossible to understand what each individual recipient was thinking. As society gradually shifted towards customer understanding, such as developing personas, the emergence of SNS enabled individual users to assert their presence, connect with others, and gain influence.

Furthermore, as smartphones became ubiquitous, methods for completing shopping and payments entirely online also became established. These societal and technological changes have made it possible to implement systems for deeply understanding customers and measures to enhance the satisfaction of each individual customer. I feel Asobica is challenging at the forefront of this.

Visualizing the behavior and underlying psychology of loyal customers through technology

Takai: As the importance of community in business grows, Asobica provides "coorum," a platform supporting corporate activities through community management and customer analysis functions. How is it being utilized specifically?

Imada: Let me share an example from Nippon Flour Mills. Nippon develops and manufactures products like flour, pasta, frozen foods, and health foods. However, since they primarily sell through supermarkets and convenience stores, they faced the challenge of having limited direct connection with customers. While POS data provided information like "when, where, what, and how many items sold," it was difficult to gather insights into why customers were interested in a product, why it sold, or why they continued using it. To address this, we helped Nippon establish a community for their "Amani" product using our coorum platform, enabling the collection and analysis of experiential and psychological data from before purchase through post-purchase.

Imada: We heard feedback that people didn't know how to use or incorporate Amani oil into their cooking, so we actively suggested ways to naturally add it to dishes. However, we discovered that actual long-term users were simply drizzling it over pasta or adding it to coffee for everyday use. This was a new insight, differing from our initial hypothesis.

Takai: It's truly impressive how you've used technology to create a system that reveals the actions of loyal customers—crucial for any company—and even the underlying shifts in their feelings. Above all, your customer-centric approach to envisioning the future of marketing resonates deeply with the Dentsu Group. I understand that Dentsu Ventures' investment in Asobica in 2022 was largely driven by our strong alignment with the vision and worldview you champion, Mr. Imada.

Imada: Yes, we were delighted that they resonated with our product and the world we aim to create. I also thought that by combining Asobica's strengths in customer data collection and analysis with Dentsu Inc.'s expertise in leveraging that data for promotions and customer experiences, we could create even greater value.

Takai: Thank you. Personally, I also deeply resonate with your passionate conviction and your attitude of challenging areas no one has ventured into yet. How did the mission "To color the world with play-like enthusiasm" come about?

Imada: To put it simply, when I decided to start a company, I thought, " I don't want to spend my life on a company or business that doesn't make a difference whether it exists or not." So, what kind of company is indispensable to society? Imagining the future, I saw that data and technology would increasingly shorten all kinds of time, giving people more leisure and free time. I believed this change was an inevitable future.

Given that, I believed society would shift from pursuing efficiency and productivity to seeking emotional fulfillment—a society valuing experiences that inspire passion and enthusiasm. I resolved to build the world's leading company that fulfills emotional richness, not material abundance. That conviction led me to define our mission: "To color the world with playful passion."

Takai: That's wonderful. Now, many people worldwide, including myself, resonate with your mission. In fact, you were selected for Forbes Asia's "Under 30" list of Asia's next-generation leaders under 30 in 2020. I, too, have dedicated my life to passionately pioneering uncharted territories—through entrepreneurship, challenging Japan's first dance flash mob, and circumnavigating the globe. Your way of life is incredibly inspiring.

Asobica × Dentsu Inc. Simulation Development: Eliminating Community Implementation Bottlenecks!

Takai: This time, through a joint development between Asobica and Dentsu Inc., we created a simulation tool for community implementation. It simulates customer acquisition plans and expected outcomes based on the client's existing touchpoint data when creating a community. By calculating the number of users participating in the community over time and simulating the number of potential customers and acquisition CPA, it can be used to support decision-making for community initiatives.

The background is that when proposing coorum to clients, we often encountered concerns like, "We're interested, but how much will it contribute to sales or business growth?" or "Will people really gather for our service?" Just as effect predictions are now required for SNS and advertising initiatives, community initiatives also struggle to gain traction without simulation capabilities. Even within the Dentsu Group, we heard concerns that while the potential of communities is understood, the inability to design KPIs or provide numerical evidence is a bottleneck for adoption.

Looking around, we found no existing simulations for the community domain. So we decided to create one ourselves, which is why we approached you, Mr. Imada.

Imada: Yes. Honestly, I wasn't sure if it was achievable. But Mr. Takai encouraged me, saying, "There are clients who say they'll implement it if we can just produce the simulation." That pushed me to take on the challenge. After interviewing the client and referencing similar past cases, we established a unique simulation method by combining the client's own data, Asobica's data, and external data.

Takai: I knew it would be a huge undertaking, so I felt I couldn't push for it. Still, I was really happy that Mr. Imada and the Asobica team were so positive about giving it a try.

Imada: However, we had experienced situations before where a client's point person was very enthusiastic about community initiatives, but the decision-makers or management demanded highly precise ROI, causing the project to stall. We recognized this as a challenge. Being able to tackle this challenge together with Dentsu Inc., including Takai-san and their expertise, was very reassuring.

Takai: After actually developing this simulation, we've seen increasing interest from clients and internally, with many expressing a desire to utilize it. We truly feel the high expectations placed on us.

Transforming all corporate decision-making around data into customer-centric approaches

Takai: Finally, could you share Asobica's future outlook?

Imada: Data from communities plays a vital role in corporate activities, but vast amounts of data also exist across numerous other touchpoints. By integrating and collecting this data, then rapidly analyzing and visualizing it with AI, we aim to create a world where anyone can easily understand and nurture customers. Furthermore, we want to go beyond just visualizing customer characteristics, segments, and clusters; we want to support clients by recommending specific actions to take based on these insights.

Beyond that, we envision a world where data drives the transformation of all corporate decision-making toward a customer-centric approach. While our services are currently used primarily in advertising and marketing, we are also considering how to transform decision-making processes across various departments—from product planning and development, to store operations, and even corporate strategy.
 
Ultimately, we want to transform the very nature of the relationship between customers and companies. We aim to create a relationship where companies view customers not as "consumers," but as "partners in value creation" with whom they can co-create. We believe this will increase the passion and enthusiasm consumers feel toward companies and brands, bringing us closer to realizing our mission.

Takai: Thank you. As an Integrated Growth Partner (IGP), we also aim to support client companies' growth beyond the confines of advertising and marketing, contributing to society's overall growth by providing better experiences for consumers. To achieve this, we will increasingly collaborate with Asobica, working hand-in-hand to take on new challenges. We look forward to continuing our partnership!