世論 What Japan Thinks

Since this blog, like many others, and like real life too, is littered with adverts, it might be useful to look at how the Japanese perceive advertising. This survey from goo Research attempted to address this issue. This survey was carried out amongst 2,147 people residing in Tokyo and the surrounding prefectures of Saitama, Kanagawa and Chiba. It was performed as a real time survey using mobile phones, whatever that means. I think it means they just phoned mobile numbers from their survey group at random, so people could answer about their current surroundings.

Q: Looking around where you are now, can you see any advertisements?

	Yes	No
At home (951 people)	22.8%	77.2%
At work or college (585 people)	19.0%	81.0%
On the train or station platform (338 people)	76.9%	23.1%
Other locations	36.3%	63.7%

Oy, what’s with people talking on the phone on the train?

Q: Regarding these advertisements you see, do you think you’ll want to act on the contents?

	Can’t see any ads	I want to act on the contents	I won’t do anything special
At home (951 people)	77.2%	8.9%	13.9%
At work or college (585 people)	81.0%	6.0%	13.0%
On the train or station platform (338 people)	23.1%	21.9%	55.0%
Other locations	63.7%	10.3%	26.0%

So, it seems like in-train advertising is the most effective, which is not surprising really, since it’s a captive and stationary (relative to the advert) audience. The survey ends with a table of the most common advertising posters seen by the respondents on station platforms and in trains, but without any numbers.

Rank	Advertisement seen
1	DoCoMo
1	SONY Handycam
2	Panasonic LUMIX
2	Sapporo “The Fruits Sparkling”
3	NOVA
3	Kirin Hyoketsu