Ranking each year’s hitto shohin (hit products) has been a fine science in Japan since the Nikkei Marketing Journal started its sumo-style banzuke listing in 1971. It was from around the early 1970s that Japan’s consumer preferences began to shift away from the stereotypical and diversify, requiring businesses to apply more innovative marketing efforts.
Originally, the rationale behind hit product rankings was to recognise goods and services that grasped new directions in the marketplace or succeeded in generating new demand.
Following the bursting of the economic bubble in the early 1990s, hits took on new importance by defying the prolonged business slump, achieving growth at a time when other competitors were struggling.
The December issue of Nikkei Trendy awarded this year’s first place to the Hokuriku Shinkansen line, which links Tokyo with Kanazawa City in Ishikawa Prefecture in just 2.5 hours. The line has almost doubled passenger demand, compared with conventional rail traffic the previous year, making it a boon to the local tourist trade.
In second place was the Akutagawa Prize-winning novel Hibana (Spark) by Naoki Matayoshi. The runaway bestseller sold more than two million copies in five months.
Third was inbound travel business: the burgeoning number of visitors from abroad, which has roughly doubled over the past five years. Among the salient features of the visitors—particularly the Chinese—is the practice of bakugai (literally, explosive buying), which is expected to push total annual expenditures by foreign visitors past the ¥3trn mark.
The Nikkei Trendy’s top five was rounded out by donuts at convenience store chains—with projected annual sales of 400mn donuts for a total of ¥40bn—and a variety of food seasonings and condiments with a coconut oil base. This new health fad appeared from out of nowhere to grab a market worth ¥20bn.
While many items on the list of hitto shohin reflect similar consumer trends in other countries, only three foreign products made it to the top 30, probably fewer than in average years. They were the Apple Watch (10th place); the Gillette Fusion men’s shaver (17th); and Oakland, California-based Blue Bottle Coffee (19th), which opened its first two outlets in Tokyo (Kiyosumi and Minami Aoyama) earlier this year.
The three wins by Japan’s national team in the Rugby World Cup 2015 has set off a wave of enthusiasm for the sport, greatly boosting the prospects for the successful hosting of the next tournament four years hence.