Sato was assigned the branding project for Mitsui & Co. in 2014. At that time, a case of a BtoB enterprise undergoing a major rebranding is extremely rare, in other words, a strange case. Looking at Japan’s business landscape where many BtoB enterprises are undergoing proper branding, you can say that the branding of Mitsui & Co. marked the rise of BtoB branding in Japan.

From the brand concept and logo to an advertising campaign conceptualized with actual employees; Sato took charge in a variety of direction. For the advertising campaign, he had 15 project members that each department recommended who joins in on the discussion while carrying on with their daily work.They share their departments unique strengths, the value they provide and the direction they should head towards.

This overall branding signifies the value of branding a BTOB company as complicated as a general trading companies. Perhaps it is to appeal to new graduates and their families to show the kind of work they provide. Perhaps it is to unify the thousands of employees in the vastly different departments. This project can be said to be an exemplary role model; soon after the rebranding, Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway invested huge amounts into MItsui & Co., signifying an interesting future to come.

Before talking about the Seven Eleven Project that Sato took on, I want to clarify a question that I have long held. When I first came to Japan, I wondered ‘Why was it called "Seven & i" instead of just Seven Eleven?’ After some digging I found out that it was to defend against a hostile acquisition.

Seven Eleven was originally an American Enterprise but it was acquired by Japanese department store Itoyokado in 1991. Despite being the subsidiary, it outgrew its parent company and complicated the relationship. At a point, Itoyokado’s market caps was only around half of subsidiary Seven Eleven’s who was listed on the stock exchange by then.

When a subsidiary grows bigger than the parent company, the parent would easily become a target of a hostile buyout. This is because, by buying the parent company of Itoyokado that has lower stock prices, you could acquire Seven Eleven Japan together at an extremely cheap rate. To protect against this, a holding company was created to hold both Itoyokado and Seven Eleven Japan: you get to increase the market value and increase the number of issued stocks which helps defend against a forced buyout. Therefore, the shareholders of both Itoyokado and Seven Eleven transferred their stocks to form Seven & i holdings.

Sato was in charged of redesigning Seven Eleven’s private brand “Seven & i”. Without relying on its image as a national brand, he redesigned each item for an image of increased quality.

Despite the huge number of items, Sato created detailed rules for each item and their packaging. The includes the font size, spacing and even how the photograph should be taken. He is known to be particular about how each packaging should communicate for the most effective sales. His effort proved to be worthy as Seven Eleven’s average annual growth more than doubled in the 7 years after rebranding as compared to the 7 years before. Sato once said: "When making rules, SAMURAI deals with irregular and hard-to-judge cases. For instance, for breads with the same outer appearance but different fillings, we include cross section photos; just like this we adapt our rules case by case. It doesn't mean its the end once you establish a rule, we continuously update it while maintaining the brand image. Its a tough but when you deal with this volume of products, you need both strictness and flexibility or risk being up all over the place."