Taichiro Morinaga

Morinaga was born in 1865, in Hizen Imari on Japan's southern island of Kyushu. He had no formal education. His father died when he was young and he was estranged from his mother's family. Later he became a potter's apprentice in Yokohama. He later became a branch manager for a wholesaler in nearby Yokohama, but his branch lost money after extending too much credit to customers due to leniency. Since employees were considered personally responsible for such losses, Morinaga searched for a way to repay his boss. With no local prospects found to repay the loss, Morinaga, at age 23, moved to the United States where he opened a hardware store in San Francisco. Racism against Asians, common at the time, made business difficult. During the visit, he also converted to Christianity.

After Matsuzaki refused to let retailers sell competing products in the 1920s, Morinaga replaced contract-based wholesale agents with a sales company that Morinaga co-invested. The salespeople in these new companies worked with retailers to help sell products. This system was part of the keiretsu, or informal business group, that Morinaga was a part of. Morinaga opened its own western-style retail stores, complete with a display window and soda fountain. His network of exclusive retailers rose to 4,000 stores before World War II. The retailers had to avoid selling products similar to Morinaga's and sell Morinaga's products for certain fixed prices. Morinaga also created a society for sweets retailers to encourage the modernization of the industry, and gave illustrated examples of how to create a display window and modern floorplan. Morinaga's various vertical marketing campaigns included a special product available only on the 1st and the 15th of every month, a nationwide art festival using candy wrappers, and "special days" for member stores in certain regions. Inspired by Takashimaya's "mannequin girl", Morinaga hired five "Sweet Girls" to be demonstrators/models at events. The MB Club sent members candy twice a month and invited them to special events, in exchange for a monthly fee. The MB Club was one of the first club marketing programs in Japan. These practices showed Hanzaburo's marketing philosophy of "selling deeply" to return customers and retailers. After World War Two, Morinaga started the organization of retail stores with exclusive selling rights under the name "Morinaga Angel Stores" in 1949. The keiretsu retail store eventually gave way to the Japanese self-service store, or super in 1972.