世論 What Japan Thinks

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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It’s coming up to the new year, so naturally there are a number of New Year Postcard surveys coming out. This time it is japan.internet.com reporting on one by goo Research into nengajo, New Year Postcards – hey, wasn’t the last one also by goo Research?

Demographics

Over the 22nd and 23rd of November 2007 1,093 members of the goo Research online monitor panel successfully completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.9% were male, 16.3% in their teens, 18.0% in their twenties, 21.9% in their thirties, 16.1% in their forties, 15.7% in their fifties, and 12.0% aged sixty or older.

I ordered the first half of my New Year Cards last night, featuring Hello Kitty in a rat costume, of course. We bought from FujiFilm; if you are still to order, I’ve found an Amazon coupon for a discount on the basic price, free delivery and a 1,000 yen discount off your next order – we used a Cecile coupon, but it wasn’t as good value. Tonight we tried the second half using Kodak, but the web site is pretty useless and we found it impossible to check out and buy the cards!

Instead of the usual graph pictured at the top of the article I’ve got a picture of a mobile phone strap featuring a commemorative Year of the Rat Cat, Kitty chan herself. This can be ordered and delivered all around the world in time for the New Year from the internet’s finest vendor of… ack, you probably all know the sales pitch by heart by now; it’s just 420 yen from Strapya.

Finally, the kanji for the Year of Rat is 子, read as ko.
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With just a few days to go before the end of November, which means that for residents of Japan planning to send 年賀状, nengajou, New Year Cards for the Year of the Rat, this weekend is your last chance to get a discount for early orders. To see what the Japanese are planning to do this year, goo Research, in conjunction with the Yomiuri Shimbun, performed a survey on New Year Postcards. It may be instructive to look at last year’s survey on New Year Postcards to see how opinions have changed over the last year.

Demographics

Unfortunately little demographic information was reported, bar that the fieldwork was conducted towards the end of October, with 1,082 successful responses received.

For those of you in the USA, or in fact Japan, as they do ship internationally, wanting your own custom New Year cards (or Christmas cards, or any other occasion, may I recommend TinyPrints as a high-quality supplier of personalised stationery, with many card designs starting from just over a dollar per card. Note if you choose to order, enter the code WINTER07 for a 5% discount, expiring on the first of February 2008.

We’ll personally be ordering about 80 cards from 55 station this weekend, and even though the coming year is the Year of the Rat we’ll give Mickey Mouse a miss, instead getting a mix of Hello Kitty and Rilakkuma photo cards. Printing the address on the back of the cards will however be done ourselves at home. Although ordering cards seems expensive up front compared to home printing, once you budget for printer ink, losses due to paper jams, and other required user effort, it’s actually quite reasonable, and the print quality is considerably higher than a standard home ink jet.

Note that in Q1SQ1, the 8% who said they won’t print their New Year Postcards includes those buying pre-printed cards and writing addresses by hand, and those who handmake their own cards.
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NOTE: The results of the 2008 New Year Postcard lottery are now available.

If you haven’t thrown away all your New Year postcards from this year, dig them out and check the serial number on the bottom right of the cards.

If the six digits are 157788 or 457190, then you’ve won top prize, and can choose from a holiday in Hawai’i, a holiday within Japan, notebook personal computer, DVD recorder and home theatre kit, or a digital SLR camera.

If the last four digits are 5161, 7093, 7485, or 9614, then you’ve won second prize, a choice of local delicacies.

If the last two digits are either 64 or 79, you’ve won the third prize, two inoshishi (wild boar)-themed stamps, which can be picked up by presenting your winning postcards at any post office.

I seem to have won nothing.

Just in time for the New Year, japan.internet.com published the results of an opinion poll conducted by JR Tokai Express Research into peoples plans for sending 年賀状, nengajou, New Year postcards for the forthcoming Year of the Inoshishi (Wild Boar). 331 members of their monitor group successfully completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 58.6% of the group was male, 6.3% in their teens, 20.5% in their twenties, 39.9% in their thirties, 23.9% in their forties, 6.9% in their fifties, 1.2% in their sixties, and another 1.2% aged 70 or older.

We finally got our cards posted out this evening, a grand total of 90 for us to send. As for email, I think the most we’ll do is a short normal mobile phone email or two rather than any special service.

Have a great New Year when it comes, everyone!
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japan.internet.com recently reported on a survey conducted by Cross Marketing Inc into New Year postcards. They got 300 valid responses to their private internet-based survey from their monitor pool; exactly half were male, and 20.0% in their teens, 20.0% in their twenties, and so on up to 20.0% in their fifties.

New Year postcards are even more required than Christmas cards were back home, so this good showing by PCs and mobiles is quite surprising for me. I will look out for another survey that might indicate to whom people plan to send the virtual and real greetings to see if there is any pigeon-holing of contacts.

It’s getting time to decide on our New Year postcards; although we usually do most communication by email, there’s something tangible about a real 年賀状はがき, nengajou hagaki, New Year postcard that electronics just can’t replace. We will order the front design from some internet site, most likely, and do the addressing by specialist New Year postcard software.

For your information, next year is the Year of the 亥, inoshishi, or wild boar.
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In Japan, Christmas cards are, obviously, almost unheard of, so instead the traditional season’s greetings are done via 年賀状ハガキ nengajou hagaki, New Year’s greetings postcards. The themes for the cards usually reflect the Chinese zodiac with this coming year being the Year of the Dog, so no doubt, given the current dog boom in Japan, stupid chihuahuas will adorn most cards. I usually send cards out to my colleagues, but this year, thanks to new privacy regulations, the list of home addresses of my colleagues is now Company Confidential, so we have been banned from creating personal address books from the data!

SourceNext conducted a small net-based survey on people’s plans for the coming season, and found out the following snippets of information. The sample was 516 people from all over the country, exactly 50:50 male and female, carried out in mid-September.

Q1: Do you plan to send New Years greeting cards (not just postcards, including e-mail or mobile-phone message, etc) this coming New Year? (Sample size=516)

Yes	89.7%
No	10.3%

Q2: What way will you send your greetings? (Sample size=463, multiple answer)

Postcard	95.7%
e-mail	37.1%
Mobile phone	31.1%
Web-based greetings car service	18.6%
Others	0.0%
No answer	0.0%

Q3: Including e-mail, etc, in total about how many New Year’s greetings will you send? (Sample size=463)

10 or less	7.6%
11 to 30	28.3%
31 to 50	21.4%
51 to 100	23.3%
101 or more	19.4%

Q4: Including e-mail, etc, will you use separate designs for work and personal, etc, New Year’s greetings? (Sample size=463)

Yes	51.8%
No	48.2%

Q5: About how many different designs will you make? (Sample size=480 where did that number come from? Shouldn’t it be 463*51.8%=240? Since there are two sub-questions, everyone counts twice?)

Work use

Two designs	54.2%
Three designs	2.1%
Four designs	0.4%
Five or more designs	0.8%
Won’t make or won’t separate (ie 0 or 1)	42.5%

Personal use

Two designs	63.3%
Three designs	17.1%
Four designs	2.9%
Five or more designs	10.0%
Won’t make or won’t separate (ie 0 or 1)	6.7%

Q6: When do you plan on buying your New Year postcards? (Sample size=443)

As soon as they go on sale	20.5%
November (but not ASAP)	25.1%
December	31.4%
January (!)	0.7%
Not decided	22.3%

Q7: When do you plan on starting making (ie writing or printing) your New Years greetings cards? NB: Last posting date is 24th December. (Sample size=443)

November	5.6%
December 1st to 24th	64.8%
December 25th to 31st	17.2%
January	1.6%
Not decided	10.8%

Q8: How will you make the postcards cards? Answer for the picture side and address sides separately. (Sample size=433+433=886, multiple answer)

	By hand	Software	Home printing machine	Order from printing company	Others
Address side	33.0%	68.2%	1.4%	0.7%	1.1%
Picture side	16.5%	77.9%	4.1%	6.8%	5.9%

Q9: What sort of greetings card do you want to use? (Sample size=463, multiple answer)

Chinese zodiac picture or illustration	75.8%
Other illustration	30.2%
Pet photo	6.9%
Family or children photo	21.2%
Others	5.6%

Q10: About how much would you spend on greetings card design software? (Sample size=117) Presumably there was a “Would you buy design software?” question to cut down the sample size.

Up to 1000 yen	20.5%
Up to 2000 yen	26.5%
Up to 3000 yen	31.6%
Up to 5000 yen	17.1%
Up to 8000 yen	3.4%
Over 8000 yen	0.9%

Q11: Why would you buy card design software? (Sample size=117, multiple answer)

For this year’s original contents	77.8%
For the latest features	33.3%
Others	7.7%