Tight budgets or not, the year's hit products roll on

[John Lindsey]

As the year rushes toward its finale, Japan's media devotes a lot of coverage to identifying hitto sh?hin (?????, hit products) that have succeeded in capturing consumers' hearts and minds over the previous 12 months. Consumer preferences have changed remarkably since the baburu keizai (?????, bubble economy) of the 1980s. For a few short years, people spent on goods and services like there was no tomorrow. At the time, a market-research company hired this writer to produce a periodical covering Japan's consumer, social and demographic trends. Trend-watching is an inexact science, but there was plenty of data to work with — Japan didn't get its reputation of being a j?h?-ka shakai (?????, information-intensive society) for nothing.

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