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Friday January 1st, 2010 | Posted in FMCG, Market Watch | 1 Comment

supermarket by :: The 2th RoOm ::.

These days, Japanese consumers seem to be getting a little less finnicky and a little more real; they want lower prices.  This has not always been the case as the price one pays is often equated with social status here.  This goes from consumer goods all the way to weddings and funerals.  Japanese who travel abroad often note how much less expensive Coach bags are in New York and Louis Vuitton products are in Paris. 
 
But this is all changing in a big way and 2009 was a fascinating year in the transformation of the Japanese consumer and the limits of their pocket books (which are by Western standards, still very deep and conservative).  But unwilling to part with their hard-earned dollars, items like ￥1,000 jeans ($10), secondhand clothes, discount sweets and convenience store brands were a big hit in 2009 and the trend looks to continue in 2010 as Japan attempts to claw its way out of deflation.
 
Here are a few tales from the retail markets in 2009:  Read the rest of this entry

Friday January 1st, 2010 | Posted in FMCG | 1 Comment

Kosai Sekine is a director of short films that often deal with socio-cultural mechanisms and how they relate to consumerism in post-industrial Japan.  As a result, his work has been sought out by a number of consumer corporations including Adidas, Fuji/Xerox and Herbal Essences.  In 2006 he won the Young Directors Award at the Cannes International Advertising Festival for his film “RIGHT PLACE”.  This video touches on several social themes specific to Japanese consumerism.  The ubiquitous “combini”, or convenience store can be seen as a contemporary platform for the traditional Japanese sensibilities of order and harmony in Japanese society.  Japan has always been fixated on the correct order of things, from meticulously-tended rock gardens to fastidiously-kept temples and shrines to immaculately-presented cusine.  The convenience store is the contemporary outlet for this fixation; as the video exhibits with great satire.