Edelman, Japan’s premier international PR consultancy, announced the results of a new blogging study that suggests Japanese are reading blogs more than Americans, Koreans, British, and French. Yup, they love consuming blogs but they are less likely to take public affairs-related action from reading them.
The poll conducted by StrategyOne over 1,000 Japanese, with accompanying studies conducted in different countries, showed that less than 1 in 5 (18%) of Japanese interviewed said that they have taken some sort of public affairs action as a result of reading a blog.
Other results are as follows:
• In an average week, almost three quarters (74%) of the Japanese Internet users who participated in the survey said they read blogs at least once a week. This is significantly more compared to the other countries studied, with just under a half (43%) in South Korea, just under a quarter in the UK (23%) and France (22%) and just over a quarter in the USA (27%).
• Among respondents who claim to have taken part in at least three (3) of the activities listed ‘Influencers’, fewer of this group (29%) were likely to do so as a result of reading a blog in Japan, compared to similar groups in other countries with 4 in 10 (41%) of Influencers interviewed in South Korea, UK (48%) and the US (49%), taking action after reading a blog.
• People interviewed in Japan were most likely to have signed a petition (18%) followed by attending a public meeting (9%).
“Even though blogging intensity is so high in Japan, the mobilizing potential of blogs for marketing or political campaigns has not yet become fully established,” says Robert Pickard, President of Edelman, North Asia. “However, our recent Edelman Trust Barometer research shows that Japanese are more likely than people in other countries to punish companies they don’t trust by taking personal actions against them, so it’s just a matter of time for this tendency – amplified by blogs – to assert itself in the marketplace and at election time.”
