ASIA-PACIFIC – TOKYO, JAPAN, NOVEMBER 2, 2011: According to the second survey in a JWT series examining post-disaster shifts in Japan, many Japanese feel the country is now confronting deeper problems it had avoided facing before. The AnxietyIndex research from JWT, the world’s best-known marketing communications brand, was conducted six months after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.
Japanese feel the disaster proved that Japan’s political system is eroded (78% of respondents) and that politics and business are too closely aligned, stifling competition (64%). The government has failed to convince the people of its leadership abilities, in part because of its failure to provide consistent, reliable information, especially in regard to radiation risks. Just 27% of respondents agree the government is capable of steering Japan through the crisis, whereas 61% trust what big corporations have been doing to help.
“There’s significant opportunity for brands to help fill the leadership void with decisive actions and by providing untainted information,” says Jordan Price, Senior Strategic Planning Partner, JWT Tokyo. “For brands that can engineer a positive change from business as usual, the rewards can be significant, given the nation’s sentiments.”
Following 3/11, there was a sense the traumatic jolt might galvanize the country, moving Japan out of its 25-year-long economic stagnation. But 6 in 10 respondents feel the crisis has shown that Japanese companies are becoming less globally competitive.
“The sense of lack of vision, leadership and direction is spilling over from government to domestic companies,” says Price. “With China’s rising global influence and Korea’s recent dynamism frequently in the media, many long for the era when Japanese companies were dominant players on the world stage.”
This report is the second in a series on Japan that seeks to analyze post-disaster shifts in perception, values and behavior in order to formulate insights relevant to brands in these uncertain times.
Other findings include:
Anxiety on the rise in an already anxious nation: The percentage of Japanese who feel “very nervous/anxious” increased significantly since our April 2011 survey—from 30 percent to 46 percent—indicating that the disaster has brought some of Japan’s deeper concerns to the surface.
Nuclear disaster still weighs most heavily on Japan’s psyche: In the near-term, resolving the Fukushima nuclear situation remains a top priority, with 67 percent ranking the clean-up as one of the most significant issues facing Japan.
Japanese remain confident in the people’s ability to overcome hardship: Despite high levels of anxiety and frustration, 94 percent of Japanese agree that the nation has encountered worse and risen above it.
JWT’s third AnxietyIndex survey in Japan was conducted September 9-18 using SONAR™, JWT’s proprietary online tool; 500 adults aged 18-plus were polled, and the data was weighted by age. Due to the disaster, 14 regions were excluded from this research, representing 27 percent of Japan.
The report can be downloaded from the Trends and Research section of AnxietyIndex.com.
