In Japan, Soft Drinks to Cure Any Ailment

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Meanwhile, for salarymen who have long sipped energy drinks crammed with caffeine and other pick-me-ups to make it through long working days, a tea or soda that promises health benefits isn't a big leap of faith.

"It's Not Just a Fad"

Perhaps most important, health concerns are rising. In particular, worries over metabo, a buzzword covering a host of metabolic disorders, are at epidemic levels. One driver: a government warning that men with waistlines more than 33 inches (35 inches for women) are at greater risk of falling victim to high blood pressure, diabetes, or other ailments. That might not be news in many industrialized countries, but in Japan, aided by a huge media debate, it triggered beverage makers to set about developing more healthy offerings. "The health of the aging population is definitely at the core of some of these products—it's not just a fad," says Michael Fiorella, who runs strategic marketing firm Spark Productions in Tokyo and blogs on trends on the Japan Marketing News Web site.

While hardly a panacea, health-improving soft drinks offer an easy fix without the need to drastically alter lifestyles. Drinks aiding in weight loss are especially popular. Drinks without government approval can also be successful if the marketing is right. At Kagome, another drinkmaker, sales of Labre, a vegetable-based lactic acid drink, reached $96 million last year, in only its second year. Rather than seek government backing, Kagome relied on a TV ad campaign featuring a popular actress to buoy sales. It was so successful that the company couldn't keep up with demand in Labre's first year and had to halt sales for several months in much of Japan. "People who actually drink it realize its efficacy and many of them became regular customers. We don't see any need to apply for governmental approval at the moment," says Takashi Kono, a spokesperson for Kagome.

Still, a huge array of healthy brews isn't guaranteed to increase drinkmakers' sales and earnings indefinitely. One challenge is keeping down costs. Developing new drinks requires sizable research and development investments that often don't pay off. To succeed, "they have to provide something new, they have to be quality, and then on top of that they have some special ingredient," says Dave McCaughan, director of strategic planning at McCann WorldGroup Asia-Pacific in Tokyo. "A lot of the drinks don't make money." Indeed, McCaughan knows of one drinkmaker that saw a loss on 33 of 37 soft drinks in 2006. Thankfully, the profitable ones were huge hits.

In time, customers might also begin to question the effectiveness of the drinks. Kazuhiro Aizawa, 45, a Tokyo-based securities trader, used to drink a bottle of Kao's Healthya tea each day, hoping that drinking a health drink every day would decrease his body fat. After six months, however, he stopped. "I couldn't see any apparent differences," he says. These days, he's swimming three times a week instead.

Tashiro is a correspondent for BusinessWeek based in Tokyo. Rowley is a correspondent in BusinessWeek's Tokyo bureau.