Creative Strategy > Insights & Research
DENTSU INC., Tokyo / KURA SUSHI, INC. / 2021
Overview
Credits
Why is this work relevant for Creative Strategy?
This digital transformation of quality assessment not only overcame the impact of a global pandemic, but also provided a story for new products that captured target audience interest.
Our idea to inspect goods remotely, using AI trained in the skills of Japanese artisans, overcame the threats to overseas tuna purchasing posed by COVID-19. This also became the context for 'AI Tuna', delicious tuna selected with unrivaled AI accuracy.
This initiative gained global attention, including news coverage worldwide. Even as the pandemic reduced customer traffic, AI Tuna became a hit, tripling initial sales forecasts and continuing to sell year-round.
Background
Kura Sushi is Japan’s largest sellers of tuna by volume.
To procure stock, the sushi chain’s skilled artisans traveled abroad, using expert judgment to directly evaluate the quality of tuna for purchase.
However, travel restrictions imposed during the COVID-19 pandemic made it impossible for artisans to evaluate and purchase on-site as they had before.
To ensure that it could continue delivering delicious tuna to consumers amid these supply threats, Kura Sushi adopted a technology developed by our agency, seeking to overturn industry conventions with a new AI-driven approach to purchasing.
Interpretation
Kura Sushi procures 70 percent of its fish stock from abroad. Pandemic-related travel restrictions posed a major threat to the continued supply of stock with consistent quality.
In response to this crisis, we proposed AI-driven remote purchasing to replace traditional quality assessment methods that required the presence of artisans.
We saw this pandemic as a great opportunity to transform the industry with AI-driven digital innovation.
We also used the AI's fair and accurate judgment in customer-oriented product branding, as an honest indicator of great taste. Our aim was to effectively promote product quality, through an initiative that ensures the reliable delivery of delicious tuna for all.
Insight / Breakthrough Thinking
We developed TUNA SCOPE, the world's first AI that uses deep learning to master Japanese artisans' ability to determine tuna quality from tail cross-sections.
Honed over more than a decade of training, the artisans' specialized judgment is based on human intuition and experience, a 'tacit knowledge' that even the artisans themselves cannot convey in words. Passing on such skills is difficult, with trainees continuing to decline.
Amid this, we began the project in 2017. After two years of R&D, TUNA SCOPE was implemented in 2019, providing the quality-evaluation expertise of Japanese artisans simultaneously to anyone in the world.
Working with Kura Sushi, we discovered that TUNA SCOPE offers new value through its ability to overcome the pandemic with remote purchasing. We established a way to purchase stock without requiring artisans to travel abroad, achieving a digital transformation of quality assessments that had relied on the skills of a limited few.
Creative Idea
Working with Kura Sushi, in 2020 we sent the TUNA SCOPE data to Dalian, China. By using this AI to locally assess tuna quality, we established a way to purchase stock without requiring artisans to travel abroad during the pandemic.
TUNA SCOPE has improved the speed and consistency of quality assessments by eliminating the errors and judgment variability that arose when humans performed the task over long hours. Our system also makes it possible to improve speed by simply increasing the number of smartphones being used.
While achieving a digital transformation of the industry, we also hoped that TUNA SCOPE would gain global attention as a groundbreaking solution that turned COVID-related disruption into an opportunity.
Outcome / Results
Despite the pandemic, AI Tuna achieved three times the forecast sales. The initiative has become a global sensation, covered by over 1,500 media outlets in 57 countries as an innovation that will transform the fisheries industry beyond the current pandemic.
TUNA SCOPE has also been selected to receive assistance from the Japanese Fisheries Agency. With government support, we are expanding our efforts to tackle the new challenge of tuna stock depletion.
At present, the global tuna business mostly trades on the basis of weight.
This prioritization of quantity at the expense of quality leads to rampant overfishing that damages tuna stocks.
In promoting 'quality' as the trading criteria, TUNA SCOPE has the potential to curb overfishing by shift business standards away from the focus on quantity.
By tackling skills and resource challenges, we hope to create a society where everyone can enjoy delicious tuna into the future.
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