How Ito En Won in Vietnam: 240% ROAS with KOC Marketing & Shopee Ads

Ito En is a familiar name to tea lovers worldwide. As Japan’s leading green tea brand, committed to quality and authenticity, Ito En has won over consumers across dozens of countries worldwide.

To understand its global success, one must look at the history of Ito En. The brand’s origins trace back to 1964 with the founding of Japan Family Service, which was followed by the establishment of the Frontier Tea Corporation in 1966. The company officially changed its name to Ito En in 1969. Early on, Ito En revolutionized the industry by developing vacuum processing and double-packaging techniques for tea leaves. This innovation made it possible to sell fresh tea in everyday supermarkets and grocery stores, rather than just by weight at specialty shops.

The company is widely credited with creating the unsweetened ready-to-drink beverage market. Following a 10-year research period, Ito En successfully launched the world’s first canned green tea in 1985. They achieved this feat by inventing a process that sprays nitrogen to remove oxygen from the container, preserving the tea’s natural green color and aroma. In 1989, the company renamed this flagship product to “Oi Ocha,” a colloquial Japanese phrase meaning “Tea, please!”. Today, Oi Ocha remains the company’s centerpiece brand and has reigned at the top of the Japanese green tea market for more than three decades.

However, entering Vietnam, a market where consumer palates are accustomed to sweetened tea, presented a formidable strategic challenge.

The Strategic Question: How can an “unsweetened” and “authentic” product win the hearts of Vietnamese consumers when most competitors thrive on sweetened formulas?

The Answer: A two-phase campaign approach:

• Phase 1: Education & Awareness Building

• Phase 2: Conversion Optimization & Revenue Growth

This case study stands as a prime example of a modern marketing framework combining Influencer/KOC content with data-driven performance advertising.

🎯 Strategic Challenges: Unfamiliar Taste & Zero Brand Awareness

When partnering with FinT, Ito En faced two primary hurdles:

• Taste Gap: The Vietnamese RTD (Ready-To-Drink) tea market is heavily dominated by sweetened products. Unsweetened green tea remains a niche segment requiring consumer habit shifts and awareness of health benefits.

• Low Brand Awareness: Despite strong distribution across convenience store chains and supermarkets, Vietnamese consumers lacked a compelling reason to choose Ito En over established bottled tea brands.

• Emotional Selling Barrier: Unlike sweet beverages that deliver instant gratification, unsweetened tea requires conveying subtle flavor notes and long-term health advantages.

For a product that challenges established habits, marketing cannot stop at selling features. The brand needed to lead a healthy lifestyle movement, and KOCs served as the most authentic bridge.

📑 Strategy: The Two-Phase Framework

“Engage to Build Preference, Utilize Data to Convert”

Instead of diving straight into hard selling, FinT and Ito En executed a structured full-funnel approach across two distinct phases.

Phase 1: Awareness & Education

• Multi-Category KOC Selection (50 KOCs): Beyond Food & Beverage, the campaign expanded into Lifestyle, Beauty, and Health verticals. Targeting beauty and wellness enthusiasts allowed the brand to reach health-conscious audiences effectively.

• Personalized Storytelling: KOCs avoided reading rigid scripts. Instead, they shared authentic lifestyle experiences: replacing carbonated sodas with unsweetened green tea, enjoying a refreshing digestive aid after meals, and highlighting the antioxidant benefits of authentic Japanese green tea leaves.

Phase 1 Key Results

• 49/50 curated KOCs published content.

• 3,511,591 views within the first month.

• 3.29% Engagement Rate (ER), outperforming the FMCG industry benchmark (3.0%).

Phase 2: Performance & Conversion Scaling

FinT activated a full-funnel strategy to amplify Phase 1 momentum:

1. KOC Content as Ad Creatives: Authentic KOC review videos were leveraged as ad creative assets for targeted Shopee and social campaigns.

2. Real-Time Data Optimization: Continuous monitoring and bid adjustments were made to maximize efficiency and control acquisition costs.

3. High-Intent Traffic Routing: Direct traffic funnels were built connecting Facebook and TikTok content straight to e-commerce destinations (Shopee & TikTok Shop).

📊 Campaign Performance Breakdown

Metric / Indicator	Phase 1 Results	Phase 2 Results	FinT Strategic Insight
Reach / Views	3,511,591 views	Amplified via Performance Ads	Established brand awareness before activating conversion campaigns.
Engagement Rate (ER)	3.29%	Exceeded industry benchmark	Authentic KOC content effectively retained viewers and built trust.
Cost Per Click (CPC)	—	2x Reduction	Leveraging high-performing user-generated content lowered ad acquisition costs.
Click-Through Rate (CTR)	—	10x Increase	Genuine reviews drove significantly higher intent compared to standard banner ads.
Individual KOC ROAS	—	600%	Top-tier creators delivered exceptional return on ad spend.
Overall Shopee ROAS	—	240%	Outstanding return for the competitive RTD beverage sector.

💡 Key Strategic Takeaways

1. Prioritize Relevance Over Follower Count: Partnering across relevant verticals (Food, Health, Beauty) ensured direct alignment with health-conscious consumer segments.

2. Sequential Budget Allocation: Investing in education and brand equity before scaling conversion campaigns prevented premature sales fatigue and optimized scaling costs.

3. Data-Driven Ad Scaling: Re-purposing top KOC content into targeted performance ads generated a 2x drop in CPC, a 10x increase in CTR, and an overall 240% ROAS.

Conclusion: Ito En’s success illustrates how to localize a niche international product without diluting brand identity. Instead of altering the formula to match market norms, Ito En shifted consumer perceptions through authentic KOC storytelling, backed by precise performance ad scaling.