Customer's Voice: Cerezo Osaka Co.

As a symbol of Osaka, the J1 club team "Cerezo Osaka" that blooms in Asia and the world

From July 2024, we have introduced automatic website translation and My Site AI Translation Premium to the official site that disseminates game bulletins, schedules, ticket information, event information, fan club information, merchandise information, and the latest information on teams and players.

We asked Mr. Shimada of the Business Promotion Group about the background and impressions of the introduction.

Kodensha: First of all, could you tell us about Cerezo Osaka's overseas strategy?

Mr. Shimada: Yes. Cerezo Osaka has been promoting its overseas strategy for about 10 years, mainly in Southeast Asia. We have been focusing on activities for the local area, such as SNS management, but recently the number of inbound-related customers visiting the stadium has been increasing. One of the factors is the success of international players such as Shinji Kagawa, and I believe that interest from overseas is increasing.

Kodensha: I see, there was such a background.

Kodensha: Were there any challenges in promoting the overseas strategy?

Mr. Shimada: Yes. As the number of overseas fans increased, the language barrier became a problem. For example, there were cases where I tried to purchase tickets locally, but I couldn't do it smoothly due to language differences. To solve this problem, we first released an English version of our online ticketing service in February 2024. Later, in order to achieve an even more multilingual website, we decided to introduce My Site AI Translation Premium.

Kodensha: Thank you very much for introducing Kodensha's services.

Kodensha: What was the deciding factor in introducing it?

Mr. Shimada: The fact that we were able to support Thai and Indonesian, and that the loading speed of the website was not affected by the translation was a major deciding factor. There were some issues at the implementation stage, but we were able to operate smoothly because of the quick response.

Kodensha: What do you think about the accuracy and speed of translation?

Mr. Shimada: I am very satisfied with the translation speed. In terms of accuracy, it is also as expected. While it needs some correction when it comes to proper nouns, overall it has reached a practical level.

Kodensha: Thank you for using the dictionary registration to be able to translate player names correctly.

Kodensha: I think this multilingual support has created new achievements and challenges, but please tell us about that.

Mr. Shimada: I think that the operation of the English version of the site, which was originally launched manually, will be unnecessary from next year.

In addition, when we looked at the number of translations, we found that there were many visits in Chinese and Korean, and we were able to see new markets that we had not envisioned before. We believe that we can consider approaching not only Southeast Asia but also newly discovered markets.

Kodensha: Above all, it seems that not only the reduction of human translation man-hours, but also the analysis function of the translation language and access area is useful.

Kodensha: Finally, please tell us about future developments.

Mr. Shimada: We will continue to strengthen our Southeast Asia strategy and increase contact with fans through communication in local languages. Through this, we hope to gain a new fan base and create business opportunities such as stadium visits, merchandise purchases, and ticket sales. They are also looking to expand their fan base through matches against teams from other countries.

Kodensha: We look forward to helping you with further development in the future.

Thank you very much for your valuable talk today.

About the company

Cerezo Osaka Co., Ltd. is a member of the J1 League, entering its 30th season in 2024, and operates the professional soccer team "Cerezo Osaka," which is based in Sakai City, Osaka City.

We develop a business centered on soccer and are active as a corporate mission to contribute to the promotion of sports culture full of dreams, hopes, and excitement and the development of local communities.