I’ve never actually been on many boys’ nights out in Japan, mostly because I feel lonely if I don’t bring the wife along, so I cannot really relate to this ranking survey from goo Ranking about what people pay attention to regarding girls’ nights out and boy’s nights out.
Demographics
Between the 23rd and 25th of March 2009 1,043 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private online questionnaire. 52.2% of the sample were male, 7.8% in their teens, 17.1% in their twenties, 28.2% in their thirties, 24.8% in their forties, 11.4% in their fifties, and 10.7% aged sixty or older. Note that the score in the results refers to the relative number of votes for each option, not a percentage of the total sample.
Sorry, it’s a bit late at night and I cannot find a nice picture to illustrate this one! Read the rest of this entry »
goo Ranking this time takes us back to our childhood, when we began to feel the first pangs of love, asking what people did when they were young, foolish, and in love, for both women and men.
Demographics
Between the 23rd and 25th of March 2009 1,043 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private online questionnaire. 52.2% of the sample were male, 7.8% in their teens, 17.1% in their twenties, 28.2% in their thirties, 24.8% in their forties, 11.4% in their fifties, and 10.7% aged sixty or older. Note that the score in the results refers to the relative number of votes for each option, not a percentage of the total sample.
Note that the answers cover teenage crushed on not just schoolmates but also unobtainable figures like teachers and pop stars.
The photo at the top is actually of San Francisco, but it was the first one that popped up then I searched flickr. My thanks to Thomas Hawk for making the picture available. Read the rest of this entry »
MyVoice recently conducted a survey into online shopping usage, the sixth time they have looked at this topic. The results of this survey are very relevant to anyone trying to sell stuff in the Japanese market.
Demographics
Over the first five days of April 2009 15,665 members of the MyVoice internet community completed a private online questionnaire. 54% of the sample were female, 2% int heir teens, 15% in their twenties, 35% in their thirties, 30% in their forties, and 18% aged fifty or older.
The numbers below are much higher than I would have expected! It’s a surprise to me that books are the top item bought – there’s very little discounting on Amazon Japan and there’s no shortage of physical book stores so I feel the online benefit is marginal in Japan, but obviously my gut feeling is wrong.
In Q2SQ4, I’m surprised they didn’t have a specific answer for a text link through a blog, as when I buy stuff it’s usually after a search for reviews then an affiliate click-through from a blog. Read the rest of this entry »
Following up on the 12,000 yen cash handout to every resident, the Government of Japan is next having an Eco Point system, where for buying certain energy-efficient home electronics you get a 5% point award in return that you will be able to cash in for some as-yet not-very-well-specified items. To see what people think of this, Macromill Research recently conducted a survey on the Eco Point system.
Demographics
Over the 27th and 28th of April 2009 516 members of the Macromill monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample was split exactly 50:50 male and female, and 20.0% of the respondents were in their twentes, 20.0% in their thirties, 20.0% in their forties, 20.0% in their fifties, and 20.0% aged sixty or older.
I’m not really sure of a good reason why people wouldn’t buy energy-efficient items in general. Thinking about it there are good reasons not to buy some items just because they have a stamp on them as often there is a higher price tag and the payback period may be longer than the lifetime of the item itself.
I also can’t help worrying that the stimulus package will encourage people to dispose of items which still have some life left in them, rendering a net negative effect on the environment. My television is a six year old standard tube-type television, but I see no reason why I should bin it now to buy a new set as it is still perfectly serviceable. However, looking at the results of Q4SQ1 almost half of the sample expect to see a positive environmental outcome. Read the rest of this entry »
This recent survey from goo Research and reported on by japan.internet.com into mobile spam found that about one in four Japanese are getting multiple mobile spams per day.
Demographics
Between the 22nd and 26th of April 2009 1,061 members of the goo Research monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.3% of the sample were male, 16.2% in their teens, 18.4% in their twenties, 21.7% in their thirties, 16.5% in their forties, 15.4% in their fifties, and 11.9% aged sixty or older.
I think I once got a mobile phone spam long, long ago, but as I rarely venture away from reputable company sites on my mobile, I don’t expose myself to any significant risks. How about you?
Between the 23rd and 25th of March 2009 1,043 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private online questionnaire. 52.2% of the sample were male, 7.8% in their teens, 17.1% in their twenties, 28.2% in their thirties, 24.8% in their forties, 11.4% in their fifties, and 10.7% aged sixty or older. Note that the score in the results refers to the relative number of votes for each option, not a percentage of the total sample.
My strange way is that I used to peel all the chocolate off Kit-Kats back in the UK and suck the chocolate off Penguin Biscuits, but I cannot lay claim to any odd sweets-eating habits in Japan. I’ve never seen Jelly Babies (or Peeps for the Americans) in Japan outside of import stores, so there are no reports in the list below of people starting with a decapitation.
Here’s a bunch of pretty boys doing number 1, eating their Tongari Corn from their fingers:
Over the first five days of April 2009 15,582 members of the MyVoice internet community successfully completed a private online questionnaire. 54% of the sample were female, 2% were in their teens, 15% in their twenties, 35% in their thirties, 29% in their forties, and 19% after fifty or older.
I’m surprised at the relatively low figure for spending in Q6, especially given a quarter eat sweets daily – I wonder if this means people only counting treating themselves explicitly to sweets, rather than also adding in purchases of treats for children that they eat together? Read the rest of this entry »
This is not quite as entertaining a FAIL as yesterday’s post, but this report from japan.internet.com on a survey conducted by iBridge Research Plus into electronic mail focused at failures in the office with BCC, Blind Carbon Copy.
Demographics
On the first of May 2009 300 members of the iBridge monitor panel completed a private intenet-based questionnaire. 55.3% of the sample were male, 13.0% in their twenties, 35.7% in their thirties, 39.7% in their forties, 8.7% in their fifties, and 3.0% in their sixties.
I can’t recall ever making a mistake with BCC, a feature I rarely use anyway, but I have been on the receiving end of huge To lists that would have been better handled with BCC.
Recently, iShare looked in detail at how people view celebrities on television, but as it features a lot of names that may not be very well-known to my average reader (nor even to me!), I’ll skip over most of the survey and highlight one very frequent complaint from many foreigners about food programs here:
Why do they all scream “Delicious!” all the time?
Watch any Japanese variety program with a food section and you’ll soon see that every mouthful of even the most mundane dish sends the gourmand (or just plain old glutton) into orgasms of delight, leaving many foreigners screaming “What’s the point?” at the television, especially as I at least find the table manners rather off-putting.
One of the survey’s questions was seeing which one celebrity eating made you hungry, and number one choice was Hidehiko Ishizuka, or Ishi-chan, or the “Ma-iu” guy, depending on how familiar you are with Japanese C-list celebrities! He is a rather sweaty and obese lump with a cavernous maw, yet one third of men and one quarter of women chose him as the person who gets their stomach rumbling. Second up was professional big eater Gal Sone, a waif of a woman who wears far too much make-up and eats by… ah, even thinking about how to describe her turns my stomach! 6.7% of men and 14.4% of women picked her. Conversely, and happily from my point of view, 48.1% of men and 39.0% of women had no-one who made them hungry.
For those who chose someone, they were asked why. The top reason was the way they ate made the food look delicious, with over nine in ten saying so. Next, just 13.1% liked the person, 9.9% felt their comments while eating were easy to understand, 7.7% said seeing the person eat made them want to eat, and just 2.7% found their comments trustworthy!
Despite the suspicious-looking title and the dodgy picture, it’s not Sunday and a silly ranking, but a serious survey from iShare into alcohol consumption and indiscretions.
Demographics
Between the 24th and 30th of April 2009 398 mobile phone-using members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private interent-based questionnaire. 51.8% of the sample were male, 39.4% in their twenties, 30.4% in their thirties, and 30.2% in their forties.
There’s so much interesting data here I hardly know where to start! In Q1SQ2 women rate themselves as stronger drinkers than men, although perhaps they are compaing themselves with other women rather than men? In Q1SQ5, it’s quite a surprisingly high number of people who’ve ended up on one-night-stands (or worse) due to alcohol.