Coke or Pepsi? in Japan
One of the eternal questions is “Coke or Pepsi?”, which is also one question from this survey from iShare on cola. I was going to joke that tomorrow I will be doing “Boxers or briefs?”, but then I remembered that I’d already done that one!
Demographics
Between the 29th of August and the 1st of September 2008 464 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private online survey. 54.7% of the sample were male, 14.2% in their twenties, 47.4% in their thirties, 28.2% in their forties, and 10.1% in their teens or aged fifty or older.
I’m a Diet Coke person myself, which in Japan actually contains a little bit of sugar. I can cope with Diet Pepsi, but the full sugar efforts are disgusting. The Diet Coke with added vitamins is pretty awful too. How about you?
Diet or full calorie cola?
Research results
Q1: Talking about cola, are you Coca Cola or Pepsi? (Sample size=464)
Coca Cola 80.2% Pepsi 16.4% Other 3.4% There was just 1.5 percentage points between men and women for Coke, but a bigger preference differential for Coke between younger and older people, with youth favouring Coke.
Q2: How often do you drink cola? (Sample size=464)
All Male
N=254Female
N=210Almost every day 3.4% 3.9% 2.9% Several times per week 7.8% 12.6% 1.9% Several times a month 23.7% 28.0% 18.6% Don’t really drink much 61.9% 54.7% 70.5% Never drunk cola 3.2% 0.8% 6.2% Those in their thirties were the heaviest drinkers, but only by a small amount.
Q2SQ: When buying cola, how do you choose which to buy? (Sample size=449, multiple answer)
All Male
N=254Female
N=210Taste 43.2% 43.7% 42.6% Calories 35.4% 35.3% 35.5% Price 27.8% 30.6% 24.4% Maker 16.9% 17.5% 16.2% Free gift 10.9% 8.7% 13.7% Volume 7.1% 7.9% 6.1% New product 2.2% 2.8% 1.5% Other 5.8% 5.6% 6.1% The breakdown by brand from Q1 was not noted in full, but the highlights were that for Coke heads, taste scored 39.4%, calories 32.0%, and price 30.0%. For Pepsi-ites, taste was 61.3%, calories 54.7%, and price 20.0%.
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Shane said,
September 17, 2008 @ 11:00
Coke wins because Pepsi is almost impossible to find unless you want to drink NEX or Lemon. Plain old, non-diet, Pepsi is a rarity in stores, at least in Chiba.
By the way that’s my drink of choice in case you couldn’t figure it out…
mike said,
September 17, 2008 @ 11:43
I live in New York. I like Coke also.
feitclub said,
September 17, 2008 @ 16:41
Believe it or not, I believe Pepsi is on the RISE in Japan. When I first came here in 2001 as a tourist, I was a certified Pepsi addict and I struggled to find it anywhere. Now I only drink it occasionally (I buy it by the case at Costco and just keep it around for months) but I see it is a regular offering in vending machines now.
And I used to drink the diet varieties until I realized the lack of calories comes at the expense of something else, something I can’t quite put my finger on. Whatever it was it didn’t help keep the pounds off - I’m an overweight person but when I used to drink diet sodas I was a lot heavier.
Mayo or ketchup? in Japan » 世論 What Japan Thinks said,
September 20, 2008 @ 23:04
[…] up on Coke versus Pepsi, this time iShare looked at mayo versus ketchup, although this time there wasn’t a direct […]
Coke or Pepsi in Japan? « My life. Digital. said,
September 25, 2008 @ 09:36
[…] Coke or Pepsi? in Japan » 世論 What Japan Thinks. […]
Drew said,
November 29, 2008 @ 02:15
I’m with Shane- Coke has to win by default here, simply because normal Pepsi is nowhere to be found.
I live in Sapporo, up in Hokkaido- and having lived in Japan for 2 years, 1 here, and 1 outside Osaka, and
traveled over half of Japan, I have only seen normal Pepsi ONCE- it’s in a vending machine across the street from me here.
All they have here is that terrible Pepsi NEX & Lemon. Everywhere. I’d rather drink my own urine.
And I like Pepsi. Coke just tastes flat to me, even fresh. Like a dull, sugary potatoe. Pepsi.