Continuing the ecology theme, let’s look at how well the corporate eco slogans are getting through to the public in Japan. This was the topic of a recent ranking survey from goo Ranking.
Demographics
Between the 18th and 2nd of February 2009 1,076 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private online questionnaire. 51.1% of the sample were male, 7.2% in their teens, 15.8% in their twenties, 29.4% in their thirties, 25.2% in their forties, 11.1% in their fifties, and 11.3% 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.
If I can’t find an official translation of the slogan I will translate it as best I can. These unofficial English versions are indicated by italicised text and probably sound really rather awful, but often even the official translations suffer from that kind of problem.
I must admit to a high degree of ignorance of the slogans; for instance, even though I get bombarded with Toyota advertisements I cannot recall seeing that particular slogan. The recognisable slogan for Mitsubishi mostly sticks in my mind for the pronunciation of Drive@earth:
The title sounds perhaps as if Sunday has come a day early to the blog, but that was the best title I could think of for this recent survey by iBridge Research Plus and reported on by japan.internet.com into online shopping failures.
Demographics
On the 30th of March 2009 300 female members of the iBridge online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 20.3% of the sample were in their twenties, 41.0% in their thirties, 27.7% in their forties, 9.7% in their fifties, and 1.3% in their sixties.
The find of failure this survey was interested in was goods not quite matching the description on the page or accidentally buying the wrong thing, etc, not technical failures or fraud. Don’t ask me why almost one in five of the sample aren’t sure whether or not they failed! Read the rest of this entry »
Sometimes I wonder why I persist with AdSense as the revenue has dropped quite noticeably over the last two years – if everything had stayed the way it was then, I’d be making over triple what I’m getting now, which itself is almost half what I was making at the peak. However, this survey from goo Research and reported on by japan.internet.com is looking at contextual advertising in blog and news columns from the consumer point of view.
Demographics
Between the 16th and 19th of March 2009 1,085 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.3% of the sample were male, 16.6% in their teens, 17.9% in their twenties, 21.4% in their thirties, 16.5% in their forties, and 27.6% agerd fifty or older.
Strangely enough, I do actually like to see a few contextual advertisements in blogs and the like; it does feel a bit lonely running an ad blocker all the time!
Note that the 30% who haven’t seen contextual advertisement does not mean that about one in three is running an advertisement blocker; there has to be another reason that I would like to see investigated some time. Read the rest of this entry »
Today’s sideways look at Japanese society is courtesy of goo Ranking as usual, where they investigated what, outside of directly work-related issues, new starts in the office would ask their seniors, for both men and women.
Demographics
Between the 18th and 2nd of February 2009 1,076 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private online questionnaire. 51.1% of the sample were male, 7.2% in their teens, 15.8% in their twenties, 29.4% in their thirties, 25.2% in their forties, 11.1% in their fifties, and 11.3% 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.
The use of “senior” is one of these difficult words to translate from Japanese. The usual translation of 先輩, sempai, is just “senior”, but in this one small word there are elements of respect and a big brother-little brother relationship. “Mentor” would be too formal and narrow a role, and it’s a much more long-term relationship than “the guy who showed me around when I started.” Read the rest of this entry »
In these tough economic times, one way of saving money is to collect coupons, so this recent survey from Point On Research and reported on by japan.internet.com looked at this very topic of mobile phone coupons.
Demographics
Over the 1st and 2nd of March 2009 exactly 1,000 mobile phone-using members of the Point On monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample was split exactly 50:50 male and female, and 20.0% in their teens, 20.0% in their twenties, 20.0% in their thirties, 20.0% in their forties, and 50.0% in their fifties.
Just at the weekend, and just in time for this survey, I got two mobile coupons, one for 100 yen off a doughnut and coffee set at Mister Donuts, and the other for a free men’s bath salts from the rather feminine chain of pricey bric-a-brac Afternoon Tea.
I would recommend free security software to most people, but the tone of this recent survey conducted by Marsh Inc and reported on by japan.internet.com into free security software seems very much to be taking a sceptical view of free.
Demographics
Between the 27th of February and the 2nd of March 2009 300 members of the Marsh monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample was split 50:50 male and female, and 20.0% in their teens, 20.0% in their twenties, 20.0% in their thirties, 20.0% in their forties, 14.7% in their fifties, and 5.3% aged sixty or older.
My misgivings about paid-for security software is that they tend to get bloated as time goes on, providing far more features than the average person really needs in an attempt to justify their need for subscription fees. My personal free security recommendations are Avast anti-virus and Spybot Search and Destroy spyware removal, useful if you have a family member who downloads toolbars and desktop widgets of dubious origins. Read the rest of this entry »
This survey has perhaps a rather narrow sample, but it is the early 20s women who are the trend leaders (or the first to adapt trends promoted by industry, depending on how cynical you want to be) so this recent survey sponsored by JIDPO (Japan Industrial Design Promotion Organization) and conducted by goo Research into design reveals a number of interesting numbers.
Demographics
Between the 1st and 5th of December 2008 1,102 women from the goo Research monitor group aged between 20 and 26 answered an online private questionnaire. 33.2% of the sample resided in the Tokyo area, 33.6% in the Osaka area, and 33.2% in the Nagoya area. 9.9% of the sample were aged 20, 14.0% aged 21, 17.2% aged 22, 16.4% aged 23, 20.1% aged 24, 21.8% aged 25, and 0.6% aged 26.
Not surprisingly Apple feature prominently, but note that in Q1 there are six or less iPhone owners who rate their device (cross reference the data with Q3), versus 125 iPod owners, yet in Q2 the iPhone is the second-most appreciated device that people do not own. Both the SoftBank CEO and I know the reason for that.
I am surprised, however, by Sharp’s mobiles being high on the list. Their AQUOS mobile phone ball joint is an impressive piece of industrial design, but the overall phone is a bit ordinary, I feel. My personal favourite mobile phone from a design point of view is the NEC N703iD credit-card themed one.
With the economy tanking, and with many firms announcing pay freezes if not cuts, this survey conducted by iBridge Research Plus and reported on by japan.internet.com into wives and foreign exchange is rather timely.
Demographics
On the 2nd of February 2009 300 married women from the iBridge monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 7.3% of the sample were in their twenties, 44.3% in their thirties, 32.0% in their forties, 13.0% in their fifties, and 3.3% in their sixties.
Over the first five days of January 2009 14,034 members of the MyVoice internet community completed a private online questionnaire. 54% of the sample were female, 1% in their teens, 14% in their twenties, 37% in their thirties, 30% in their forties, and 18% aged fifty or older.
I don’t think I’ve ever actually used a commercial movie streaming or delivery service myself, and I can’t really see myself paying for it. I get Star Channel on cable, so I suppose if they offered a similar service for download direct to my DVD recorder, I perhaps could pay a monthly fee. AcTVila offers that sort of service through one’s television and Blu-ray recorder, but as can be seen here the take-up is quite low, but then again it is a new service.
Note that although I refer to movies in the translation below, the services also cover re-runs of television shows, etc. Read the rest of this entry »
As I’ve just recently had a request from work to complete some online training, this recent survey from Marsh Inc and reported on by japan.internet.com into e-learning is quite timely for me.
Demographics
Over the 7th and 8th of January 2009 300 members of the Marsh monitor group completed a private online questionnaire. The sample was exactly 50:50 male and female, 20.0% in their twenties, 20.0% in their thirties, 20.0% in their forties, 20.0% in their fifties, and 20.0% aged sixty or older.
The training I’ve been asked to complete is some stuff on copyright and intellectual property, all in Japanese of course, in some sort of Flash-based presentation that I’ve not tried yet. I once did a similar course with quite nice software that came with full text of all the script, so I could easily cut-and-paste words I didn’t understand into a dictionary. However, the course was ridiculously easy; it just seemed like a way to force you to sit through 10 or 15 hours of lectures, with the implication, of course, that you do it all on your own time, not at work. Read the rest of this entry »
The title sounds perhaps as if Sunday has come a day early to the blog, but that was the best title I could think of for this recent survey by iBridge Research Plus and reported on by japan.internet.com into 
Sometimes I wonder why I persist with AdSense as the revenue has dropped quite noticeably over the last two years – if everything had stayed the way it was then, I’d be making over triple what I’m getting now, which itself is almost half what I was making at the peak. However, this survey from goo Research and reported on by japan.internet.com is looking at 
In these tough economic times, one way of saving money is to collect coupons, so this recent survey from Point On Research and reported on by japan.internet.com looked at this very topic of 
I would recommend free security software to most people, but the tone of this recent survey conducted by Marsh Inc and reported on by japan.internet.com into 
With the economy tanking, and with many firms announcing pay freezes if not cuts, this survey conducted by iBridge Research Plus and reported on by japan.internet.com into 
I’ve looked a number of times at 
As I’ve just recently had a request from work to complete some online training, this recent survey from Marsh Inc and reported on by japan.internet.com into 
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