世論 What Japan Thinks

[part 1 | part 2]

DIMSDRIVE Research recently carried out a survey on free presents given away with foodstuffs, a rather popular method of promotion here in Japan. They surveyed 5,925 people, 2,410 male, from all over the country by means of an internet-based questionnaire in mid-December. The average age of the men was 40.2 years old, and of the women 35.7.

A gaijin ex-colleague of mine did collect the cards for some series or other – I forgotton the name of it, but it wasn’t one of the mass market animes. He bought one or two boxes of the chocolates and dutifully chomped his way through the whole lot at work, not ever offering me a single one, although he assured me the chocolate was disgusting.

I occasionally buy bottled drinks that come with free gifts if they have a nice strap to give away. Ocha Ken was an excellent series, although I only bought two bottles. Hopefully they revive it this summer. At the back of a cupboard somewhere is a dozen or so scented tea candles from Sokenbicha (sokenbicha looks really ugly in romaji; 爽健美茶 is much nicer!) that I really should light one day!
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[part 1 | part 2]

DIMSDRIVE Research recently carried out a survey on free presents given away with foodstuffs, a rather popular method of promotion here in Japan. They surveyed 5,925 people, 2,410 male, from all over the country by means of an internet-based questionnaire in mid-December. The average age of the men was 40.2 years old, and of the women 35.7.

First a quick Japanese lesson! The word used for these free presents is 食玩, shokugan, which as of the time of writing doesn’t appear in any online Japanese to English dictionary, but hopefully that will soon be rectified by Jim Breen and his WWWJDIC. I’ll use the term “free gift” as the translation of the term for the purposes of this post.

Next, a British English to American English lesson! “Sweetie” is “candy”, “rubbish” is “trash”.

The picture up top, taken from my mobile phone, so excuse the poor quality, is of my PC case at work. The figures all came free with Diet Coke through various promotions surrounding One Piece, Lupin III and Dragonball Z.
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