Daimaru Fukuoka turns its food hall into a month-long anko-versus-butter ballot
Daimaru Fukuoka Tenjin is running a month-long receipt-ballot contest pitting red-bean sweets against butter confections in its basement food hall, requiring shoppers to spend at least ¥1,620 and sign in with the store's loyalty app to cast a vote -- the kind of basket-building mechanic depachika floors increasingly lean on.
Daimaru Matsuzakaya Department Stores said its Daimaru Fukuoka Tenjin store will run an "anko vs. butter" (あんこ vs バター, red bean paste against butter) vote across both basement food halls, in the main and east buildings, from November 4 to December 1. Shoppers who spend ¥1,620 or more, tax included, at the main building's basement floor receive a receipt coupon that they can cast for either side, the company said.
Casting a vote takes more than a receipt: shoppers must write their Daimaru Matsuzakaya loyalty-app membership number on the coupon before dropping it in the anko or butter box at the north connecting passage, and shoppers who are not yet members can sign up through a link in the announcement. Once the contest closes, Daimaru will draw 20 winners by lottery from the winning side, each receiving a ¥1,000 app coupon good on either basement floor.
The range of sweets on offer spans the department store's usual depachika (basement food hall) mix of regional specialities and name confectioners. On the anko side, the cheapest entrant is a ¥200 Tenjin Ansando (天神あんさんど), a bean-jam sandwich sold only at this store, against a ¥3,024 four-piece monaka (wafer-shell sweet) box from GODIVA; on the butter side, a ¥1,728 butter-sable assortment from Sableya competes against a ¥3,834 eight-piece financier box from La Maison du Chocolat.
None of this changes what is on the shelf: the anko and butter sweets were already on sale before the vote opened. What the ballot buys Daimaru is a reason for a shopper to cross the ¥1,620 threshold and hand over an app membership number in the same transaction -- the two things a depachika floor needs most, a bigger basket and a logged-in customer it can market to again in December.