世論 What Japan Thinks

infoPLANT recently published the results of a survey they conducted into the consumption of soft drinks. Over a week towards the end of December last year 5,933 people chose to complete a survey promoted in the NTT DoCoMo iMode menuing system. The basic demographics were 37.5% male and 62.5% female.

It might be interesting to cross-reference these results with one earlier this month into water consumption and last year’s look at can coffee consumption. As well as the water mentioned previously, I’m a Diet Coke fan and also like soba tea and 爽建美茶, soukenbicha, a lovely blend of various grasses and teas. Although I’m a regular black tea drinker at home, I don’t touch bottled tea as it’s usually undrinkably sugar-laden, as is much of the canned coffee. Black coffees are straight, but I can’t cope with the bitterness, so I stick with the 微糖, bitou, slightly sugared, which are usually paletable. I don’t actually buy them myself, but we have a monthly workplace casual meeting where the company provides soft drinks and nibbles.

Q1: How often do you buy fizzy drinks, tea, or other prepared soft drinks? (Sample size=5,933)

	Total	Male N=2,227	Female N=3,076
Almost every day	43.5%	59.4%	33.9%
Four or five times a week	12.7%	12.5%	12.8%
Two or three times a week	20.2%	15.0%	23.3%
About once a week	13.3%	7.0%	17.0%
Two or three times a month	6.9%	3.8%	8.8%
About once per month	1.9%	0.9%	2.5%
Less than that	1.1%	0.8%	1.3%
Never buy	0.4%	0.5%	0.3%

There was little variation by age, barring for teenage boys, but perhaps that was due to a very small sample size.

Q2: Within the last week, which of the following types of fizzy drinks, tea, or other prepared soft drinks have you

bought? (Sample size=5,911, multiple answer)		Total	Male N=2,215
Female N=3,696	Coffee	56.1%	71.8%
46.8%	Green tea	54.1%	56.1%
52.9%	Carbonated drink	37.9%	43.7%
34.4%	Black tea	32.5%	29.3%
34.5%	Sports drink, isotonic drinks	31.3%	36.3%
28.4%	Mineral water	27.3%	25.1%
28.6%	Sugar-free tea drinks, excluding green tea	23.7%	22.6%
24.3%	Tomato or other vegetable juice	23.5%	23.2%
23.7%	Other	14.5%	9.2%
17.7%

Note that green tea is almost always sugar-free; I think you can get a green tea latte that has sugar, but on the whole green tea is straight. I’m not sure how people answered about drinks that fall into more than one category.

Looking at the detailed breakdown by age, black tea was over twice as popular with teenages compared to those of fifty. No other drink showed such a noticable trend.

Q3: Where do you usually buy fizzy drinks, tea, or other prepared soft drinks? (Sample size=5,911, multiple answer)

	Total	Male N=2,215	Female N=3,696
Convenience store	73.4%	78.4%	70.4%
Vending machine	63.5%	75.3%	56.4%
Supermarket	60.3%	46.4%	68.6%
Drug store	26.3%	17.5%	31.6%
Discount store	19.7%	21.2%	18.9%
Railway station kiosk	7.1%	7.2%	7.1%
Mail order	1.2%	1.2%	11.%

Convenience stores were a bit more popular with young people rather than old, but no other stores had particularly obvious age trends.

Q4: Have you ever taken part in a promotional campaign associated with fizzy drinks, tea, or other prepared soft drinks? (Sample size=5,911, multiple answer)

	Total	Male N=2,215	Female N=3,696
Collected stickers and applied by postcard	56.8%	55.0%	57.9%
Collected a single sticker and applied through PC	15.2%	18.2%	13.3%
Collected a single sticker and applied through mobile phone	52.3%	52.6%	52.2%
Collected five or more stickers and applied through PC	11.6%	15.9%	9.1%
Collected five or more stickers and applied through mobile phone	39.0%	45.6%	35.0%
Never bought drinks with a promotion campaign	6.5%	5.7%	7.0%

Sometimes there will be promotions through these drinks that require collecting stickers and either posting in a card with them stuck on, or typing a unqiue code from the sticker into a web site to either or both win instant prizes or save up the points towards applying for a bigger prize.

I think the difference between collecting one sticker and five or more is to highlight if people apply as soon as they make their purchase, or save up the points and apply en masse.

Postcards were more popular with older people of both sexes, and there were slight trends suggesting mobiles were more popular with younger people, PCs for older people, when it came to applying for these competitions.

Q5: Regarding stickers or quizzes associated with fizzy drinks, tea, or other prepared soft drinks, select all that are close to your point of view. (Sample size=5,911, multiple answer)

	Total	Male N=2,215	Female N=3,696
I’ll want to buy drinks I don’t usually buy if they have a quiz	51.3%	47.3%	53.7%
If there’s a prize I want, I want to collect lots of points and apply	32.8%	37.8%	29.8%
Collecting points is bothersome	24.8%	24.1%	25.3%
I’ll want to buy drinks I don’t usually buy if they have a sticker campaign	23.9%	25.9%	22.7%
I’m interested in products that have quizzes and other promotional campaigns	14.5%	13.2%	15.3%