Satomi Ura,
Department of International Studies, School of Humanities and Social Sciences,
Meisei University, Japan
Abstract
Under the circumstances of COVID-19 devastating restaurant management, there are increasing demands of promotion for culinary business all over the world. This study investigates the way to market and promote culinary business by developing digital promotion products. In order to promote culinary business, a marketing and promotion project took place in the university as the joint project. The project teams were formed to promote Georgia beverage together. Intercultural project involves a synergistic work between a group of students from Georgia and Japan. This study employs mediated discourse analysis (Scollon, 1998; Scollon & Scollon, 2004) to see the spoken and unspoken language as actions. Mediated discourse analysis expands understanding language in action in daily lives. Mediated discourse analysis comes from an adaptation of sociocultural theory. The focus of mediated discourse analysis is not only discourse but the whole vision of social practices. Wertsch (1998) claims that all actions are mediated through ‘cultural tools': objects, technologies, practices, identities, social institutions, and also language and other semiotic systems. In order to bring back lively business there must be fundamental factors that stimulate potential customers. The project is to raise awareness conversion of two socio-cultural contexts apparently distant, through beverage marketing and the restaurant promotion. The integration of ideas creates marketing and promotion tools to trigger emotional engagement of potential customers. This project also brought a unique opportunity for interaction between two cultures that may seem distant, but that are similar for what concerns communication and international business relations.
Keywords: Languaging, Beverage Marketing and Promotion, Culinary Business, Design Thinking, Mediated Discourse Analysis