世論 What Japan Thinks

The winners of the 2014 New Year Postcard lottery for the Year of the Horse have been announced, and the winning numbers and prizes are as follows. The number to check is the six digit number at the bottom right of the card. Note that some cards do not actually have numbers, which means they are not eligible. This year they have simplified the prizes into three ranks from four the previous years.

First prize: last five digits 97085

10,000 yen

Second prize: last four digits 2344

Choose any one of 38 different products, from foods like mango juice to electrical items like an ultrasonic toothbrush.

Third prize: last two digits 72 or 74

Otoshidama stamp set – a fifty yen and an eighty yen stamp, pictured above.

If you have matched any of these, go to your nearest post office before the 22nd of July 2014 and either collect the stamps while you wait, or apply by post or fax for the second prizes. The full prize line-up can be seen here. How did you get on? I got just the one stamp set, sadly.

Let’s end the year on a postive note, a look with goo Ranking at what New Year postcards touched people’s hearts.

Demographics

Between the 18th and 20th of October 2011 1,092 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.3% of the sample were male, 11.2% in their teens, 16.2% in their twenties, 25.7% in their thirties, 25.8% in their forties, 11.5% in their fifties, and 9.5% 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.

Happy New Year to all my readers!
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It’s a while since I’ve had a FAIL post, so here we go with the second-last post of this year, a look by goo Rankings at what New Year postcard failures people have realised after posting them.

Demographics

Between the 18th and 20th of October 2011 1,092 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.3% of the sample were male, 11.2% in their teens, 16.2% in their twenties, 25.7% in their thirties, 25.8% in their forties, 11.5% in their fifties, and 9.5% 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 first answer refers to when people have a death in the family, that year they will send out In Mourning postcards in late November or so to announce it, so for that year one should not send them a card. My wife accidentally sent one this year, but she didn’t seem terribly bothered by the affair. I also nearly send out some without my name and address, but I caught it in time! I also wrote a rather sarcastic message to a boss this year, but wife refused to let me send it…
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As we run down towards the end of the year, I’ll present a few ranking surveys from goo Ranking into 年賀状, nengajou, New Year postcards. This one looks at how to make your card stand out from all the others.

Demographics

Between the 18th and 20th of October 2011 1,092 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.3% of the sample were male, 11.2% in their teens, 16.2% in their twenties, 25.7% in their thirties, 25.8% in their forties, 11.5% in their fifties, and 9.5% 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.

A friend (who I hope isn’t reading, or at least doesn’t recognise the description) once did a ray-traced computer graphic, but although he normally is quite talented at that sort of thing, on a New Year greetings card it just looked a bit cheap and nasty. On the other hand, another friend draws very proficient traditional-style Japanese pictures which really do stand out.

Probably a number of you have seen a collection of creative business cards – let me see if I can find a similar site for Japanese New Year cards – the only I came across was this dried squid:

If I was wanting to stand out, I’d make a Flash animation (assuming I had any talent in that direction!) and print out postcards that were nothing more than a stark black-and-white QR Code. One for an SEO company or advertising agency would be just a Google search keyword as seen in advertisements.

My postcards are commercially printed with photos inserted, but this year we got the count wrong and ended up having to do half of them on boring old cards, but I had a kappa stamp that added a bit of individuality to these.
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Having just ordered my New Year postcards today, it seems timely to translate this survey from goo Ranking into New Year postcard disappointments.

Demographics

Over the 21st and 22nd of October 2010 1,075 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 66.3% of the sample were female, 9.9% in their teens, 18.1% in their twenties, 30.9% in their thirties, 24.7% in their forties, 8.8% in their fifties, and 7.5% 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 postcards this year will be Rilakkuma – we were going to do Miffy cards, which would be appropriate given that next year’s Chinese horoscope sign is the rabbit, but the discount coupon we had had expired.
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I hope most of my fellow readers resident in Japan have got their New Year greeting (nengajou) postcards ready, as time’s running out! To see how you should be approaching what I think is an important (in some aspects) custom, this detailed survey from MacroMill Inc looked at 2009 New Year Greetings.

Demographics

Over the 25th and 26th of November 2008 624 members of the MacroMill monitor group completed an internet-based private questionnaire. The group was split exactly 50:50 male and female overall and in each age group, and 16.7% in each of these age groups, 15 to 19 years old, twenties, thirties, forties, fifties, and sixty or older.

I’m nearly ready to go; I still have to import the addresses from my old postcard software to the new one, which involves a wee bit of Excel CSV file massage, but barring accidents I’ll be printing them out at the weekend. As for electronic greetings, I think it feels cheap to me, and unless I know it’s someone sending it in addition to a postcard, I feel hard done by.

In Q5, I’m surprised that what I thought would be the main reason for sending electronic greetings, saving money, didn’t feature as a distinct answer, and neither did some ecology-related reason.
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No, not a free offer from me, but some research into 年賀状, nengajou, New Year Postcards conducted by iBridge Research Plus and reported on by japan.internet.com looking in particular at both free advertisement-plastered pre-franked postcards and the SNS mixi’s pay service for sending postcards to virtual friends whilst retaining privacy, a process which I wouldn’t be surprised if they have applied for a patent for.

Demographics

On the 25th of November 2008 300 people from the iBridge monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.7% of the sample were female, 14.3% in their twenties, 37.3% in their thirties, 31.7% in their forties, 10.3% in their fifties, and 6.3% in their sixties.

Looking at the web site giving the cards away (too late, the closing date is past!) it’s actually rather a good idea. The cards have the adverts inside the postcard and can be peeled open, otherwise you get an almost completely blank card for you do draw or print on as desired.

I’ve already ordered and received my Year of the Cow cards; two styles, one with Hello Kitty in a field of cows, the other is just a generic cute cartoon cow design. Both were designed and ordered over the internet, but we’ll be printing out the addresses at home.
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