灘酒造家による商標の統一化と販売戦略の変化

抄録

This paper clarifies the structure of the management development in prewar days of a large-scale brewer in Nada, Hyogo Prefecture, observing the source of the profit in the distribution process. Tatsuuma-Honke in Nishinomiya is adopted as an example. The way that should be and the change of the complicated Japanese sake distribution process are considered by an analysis which combined its sales market, sales strategy, and individual management. As a result, the following points were solved in this paper.
First, it is confirmed that in the mid-1920s Tatsuuma-Honke established even in Tokyo the relation of maker predominance which was previously being developed in a local market. Although the company did not necessarily persist in its share reservation in the Tokyo market, without being bound by the monopoly right of the brand which remained among each wholesaler, it was meaningful to enable sales with the “Hakushika” brand which it specified itself.
In process of the trademark establishment, the production of self-made sake increased and the raising of the bottom level of the quality was achieved. As a result, in Tatsuuma-Honke, it became possible to use a sales strategy which was further conscious of the brand's bottling sales. However, it was more important for Tatsuuma-Honke to internalize the structure which combined a sales method — undiluted sake dealing in a tun unit— called “Oka-Uri” with the opposite character of bottling, and carries out the hedge of the unsold risk. This also meant the possibility that the purchase of the undiluted sake from a minor-scale brewer would be demoted to the 2nd buffer for a large-scale brewer. This indication adds new knowledge to a simple understanding that the former specialized in Oke-Uri and the latter was based on sales of brand sake, as shown by the conventional history of research.
The high profitability in the distribution process as the above-mentioned result relatively stabilized the brewing management of Tatsuuma-Honke in the depression of the 1920s. Such a case was just a pattern of the development which preceded the large-scale management in the prewar-days term of the Nada brewing industry.