ABSTRACT
The Japanese consumer market is continuously changing, and changing quickly and profoundly. The knowledge of a marketing manager who last visited Japan in 1971 is unquestionably inadequate for the establishment of a satisfactory marketing strategy to cope with the market. The post-war rapid economic growth of Japan has been brought about by maintaining a dynamic balance between the extraordinarily high growth rate of private capital formation and the growth of exports that financed the foreign currency requirements for the importation of capital goods and technology. Japan has the second largest consumer market in the free world. The Japanese have tended to choose stability of life rather than the vicissitudes of self-employment and also urban life rather than rural. Food is extremely expensive in Japan, especially meat and dairy products. Education in post-war Japan is something of a national obsession. The emergence of the ‘New Family’ is in itself of great significance for the Japanese consumer market.
