In 2023, MIO’s American audience was people who already drank sake.
MIO is a sparkling sake at 5% alcohol. In the United States, the people who recognized the bottle were people who already had a favorite sake.
There was very little to show anyone else. The brand had almost no content made for American social. And alcohol is a restricted category on Meta, which limits who a post can be aimed at and what it can show.
A first-time buyer has to picture a drink in their own week before they pick it up, and MIO’s feed hadn’t shown them one.
We positioned MIO as the sake you try before you know anything about sake.
We made two calls.
The first was about who MIO is for: the person who has never ordered sake. The feed answers that person’s questions: what it tastes like, how to serve it, what to eat with it, and which to buy, MIO or MIO CRISP.
The second was about what the feed looks like. We traded part of the polished product photography for people: creator video, real glasses, picnics and pools. Japan stays in the feed too: Japan’s Sake Day sits on the same calendar as National Picnic Day.
Recipes, comparisons and creator video, posted on days Americans already celebrate.
Every month MIO gets a planned mix of lifestyle posts, designed graphics and video, built around the American calendar and published to Facebook and Instagram. Here is what has gone into the feed since 2023.
- Recipes
A MIO 75, a creator’s recipe for MIO popsicles, and a fizzy spring cocktail, each one something a viewer could make that weekend.
- Side by side
MIO and MIO CRISP in the same frame, so a first-time buyer can choose one on purpose instead of walking away from both.
- The basics
We made a carousel on how MIO is fermented, an FAQ story, and a graphic of the words that describe how it tastes.
- The calendar
MIO shows up on Valentine’s Day, National Picnic Day, pool days and Thanksgiving, and on Japan’s own Sake Day, October 1. See the calendar.
- Creators
Most months the video comes from a creator. Creators buy the bottle and we pay them back. The rule for creators is to hold the glass and raise a toast. No sipping on camera.
- Boosts
Meta doesn’t recommend alcohol posts to new audiences, so MIO’s content reaches new people when it’s boosted. We boost the posts that perform, and an always-on ad campaign asks new people to follow. In July 2026 we rebuilt those follower ads around one goal and a wider audience: adults 25 and up interested in sake, sushi, Japanese food, sparkling wine and other drinks.
June’s most engaging boosted post was a creator’s popsicle recipe.
In June 2025 the post our monthly report named its most engaging paid post was a creator video: a recipe for popsicles made with MIO.
It asked the viewer to know nothing about sake. It asked them to own a freezer.
That has been the test for every post since: does it give a first-time drinker something to do with the bottle this weekend?
Instagram grew by more than two-thirds. Facebook more than doubled.
Most of the growth came in 2025.
Ads sat behind the growth on both platforms, and a buyer should know how much. On Facebook, always-on follower ads delivered about 8,500 page likes in those 21 months, against 9,948 net new followers. On Instagram, ads aimed at profile visits ran throughout; ad reports credit 281 follows to them from June to September 2026, the only months they count follows.
In April, Instagram’s two most-engaged posts both came from Citi Field.
MIO’s Mets content goes back to 2024, the first season of Takara’s sponsorship. One of our graphics that year read “Perfect sip for your 7th inning stretch,” with a footnote: alcohol sales stop after the 7th-inning stretch.
In 2026 the stadium content came from MIO: photos and clips from Citi Field. Many of the shots don’t show the bottle. We kept the footage, added the MIO logo and a slide that shows the product, and posted it alongside everything else in the plan.
In April 2026 one of those clips was Instagram’s top post of the month, by engagements and by engagement rate, ahead of every recipe, graphic and product shot. By engagements, the second-best was a stadium photo too. On Facebook, with a boost behind it, the same clip drew more engagements than any other post. And when we rebuilt the follower ads in July, a Mets asset was the best-performing ad in the campaign for three months.
“Thank YOU for the call yesterday! We are very excited to see the high performance of the Citi Field contents. Also thank you for making the suggestion for our boosting strategy.”
MIO Sparkling Sake teamOur 2025 annual review recommended a lifestyle photo shoot. In August 2026 MIO hired us to do it. We shot it in September with two models and three bottles: MIO, MIO CRISP and the new MIO NIGORI, which was cleared for the feed in October.
