• The Korean Journal of Food And Nutrition
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• 제24권4호
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• pp.808-816
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• 2011

The aim of this study was to compare the American, Chinese, and Japanese consumers' usage behavior of marketing communication towards overseas Korean restaurants. The survey included both on and off-line method and self-administered questionnaires were written in three languages- English, Chinese and Japanese. The sample was collected from 5 hub cities for globalization of Korean food- LA, New York, Tokyo, Beijing, and Shanghai. The most important factor of searching for Korean restaurants-related information was 'the interaction' and the least one was 'the diversity'. The most commonly informed Korean restaurants-related content through the on and off-line media was 'the general information, such as location, telephone number, and operation hour'. Korean restaurants-related content that the respondents' most interested in was 'the information of menu and price'. Results of this study can expectedly be used from a practical point of view by providing empirical data of foreign consumers for effective marketing communication strategies of overseas Korean restaurants.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Culture
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• 제27권6호
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• pp.666-676
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• 2012

The purpose of this study was to propose effective marketing communication strategies for overseas Korean restaurants through a multilateral comparison analysis of American, Chinese, and Japanese consumers' attitudes towards communication media and Korean restaurants. The survey was written in English, Chinese, and Japanese, with guideline for surveyors, and conducted using both online and offline methods. Samples were collected from five major cities - Los Angeles, New York, Tokyo, Beijing and Shanghai, which are the foothold for the globalization of Korean food. When it comes to attitudes towards communication media, word-of-mouth showed a high mean value, indicating it as the most useful and reliable media recognized by consumers who visited Korean restaurants. Furthermore, the necessity of recognizing the importance of visual communication in the physical environment of Korean restaurants and specialized websites, featuring restaurants and gourmet food, was observed. Consumers in all three nations chose word-of-mouth as the most useful and reliable media for learning about Korean restaurants. In addition, American consumers highly depended on signage and restaurant exteriors. Chinese consumers highly recognized the usefulness and reliability of offline media, such as newspapers, magazines, and events, while Japanese consumers considered online media, such as gourmet websites, blogs and social networks, as useful and reliable sources. A significantly positive attitude and high value was observed in all who had visited Korean restaurants. American and Japanese consumers had a significantly higher rate of intention to visit Korean restaurants in the future and to tell others about their satisfaction with Korean restaurants. Meanwhile, the average rate of prior preference for Korean restaurants (when choosing restaurants) was the lowest in all three countries. This study is useful for both the Korean government and food enterprises abroad to plan and develop marketing communication strategies properly for overseas Korean restaurants.

• Korean Journal of Community Nutrition
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• 제24권5호
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• pp.374-383
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• 2019

Objectives: This study analyzed Japanese consumers on their sauce consumption, and assessed the relationship between consumer innovativeness and consumption behavior for new sauce products. Methods: The survey was completed by local consumers visiting Korean restaurants in Osaka, Japan, in September 2018. The demographic characteristics, consumption of sauce, consumer innovativeness, and factors of theory of planned behavior were evaluated. Totally, 150 collected data were analyzed using the IBM SPSS Statistics 25.0 Program (IBM SPSS INC, Armonk, NY, USA). Results: Results of the survey indicate that Japanese consumers purchase a sauce by considering the taste and food utilization. Sauce purchases were maximum at mega markets and supermarkets. The consumer innovativeness for Japanese consumers was based on 3 factors: 'Purchasing adventurous products (3.51 ± 0.96)', 'Active information seeking (4.36 ± 1.11)', and 'Interactive information seeking (4.33 ± 1.02)', where the tendency of 'Active information seeking' was the highest innovativeness factor. Furthermore, higher values of perceived behavior control (4.68 ± 1.21), attitude (4.66 ± 1.41) and subjective norm (4.39 ± 1.28) were revealed, when assessing for theory of planned behavior factors. Correlating the variables of consumer innovation and factors of planning behavior theory, 'Active information seeking' is a positive attribute for attitude (p<0.016), subjective norm (p<0.001), and perceived behavior control (p<0.002). These 3 factors also had significantly positive effects on purchase intention for new sauce product (p<0.000, p<0.000, and p<0.002, respectively). Attitude was determined to be another very influential variable for purchase intention of a new sauce product (B=0.484, t=6.881). Conclusions: The results of this study determine the consumption patterns of sauce for the Japanese consumer, and the relationship between consumer innovativeness and consumption behavior for Korean traditional sauces. We believe the data generated from this study will help determine a marketing strategy to enter the Japanese market.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Culture
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• 제25권1호
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• pp.9-16
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• 2010

To establish a globalization strategy for Korean food, it is important to ascertain foreign consumer's taste preferences and to evaluate their sensory perceptions of Korean food. In concert with previous studies, the most preferred food were Bulgogi and Galbi. However, respondents showed somewhat different preferences for other foods. Chinese and other Asian participants preferred Galbitang and Samgyetang, while Japanese participants preferred Pajeon, Galbitang and Japchae, and Western participants preferred Galbitang, Mandu and Bibimbap. The most preferred condiment was hot pepper paste (the representative condiment of Korea) and the least preferred one was ginger. Hot pepper paste was preferred most by Japanese participants, while Chinese participants tended not to prefer ginger and other Asian participants excepting those from China and Japan disliked vinegar most. Foreign consumers tended to consider Korean food as sweet, salty and very hot. Chinese participants considered Korean food to be 'plain' and 'light and washy' in taste, while Japanese participants considered Korean food to be 'greasy' and 'thick and sticky'. Chinese participants considered typical servings to be inadequate, while Japanese participants considered the servings as excessive.

• Journal of Family Resource Management and Policy Review
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• 제8권1호
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• pp.1-13
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• 2004

This study examined in detail the Japanese system of redressing consumers' losses and the overall consumer administrative system and compared them with the Korean counterpart to seek for a direction of reforming the systems. Several policy suggestions could be made as follows to activate the systems and improve the performances of the consumer administration in both Japan and Korea. First, in Japan, consumer center must be efficiently operated while private consumer groups, firms, consumer agencies and other organizations must actively join to actively redress consumers' losses and implement other consumer policies. Second, in Korea, regional consumer policies are weak so that they must learn Japanese well-developed regional consumer administration system by examining their current development, strengths, and weaknesses. Third, working conditions must be urgently improved, increasing the number of consumer counselors who are involved in consumer policies as well as to guarantee minimum level of their payment. On the other hand, the trend of hiring married and old employees being responsible for implementing consumer policies in Japan must be improved. Fourth, divisions of works in consumer policies among consumer groups as well as their specialization in Korea are necessary. Finally, as counseling of consumers through internet were not available in Japan, that type of counseling must introduce and become more popular in the future.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• 제25권1호
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• pp.143-150
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• 2012

Competition in global pork markets has increased as trade barriers have opened as a result of free trade agreements. Japanese prefer both loin and Boston butt, while Chinese prefer pork offal. Frozen pork has increased in terms of imports into China. Japanese consumers consider pork meat origin along with pork price when making purchase decisions. While the Chinese prefer a strong tasting pork product, South Korean consumers show very strong preferences to pork that is higher in fat. Therefore, South Korean consumers have a higher demand for pork belly and Boston butt. Consequently, the supply and demand of pork in Korea is hardly met, which means that importation of high fat parts is inevitable. In Korea there is lower preference toward low fat parts such as loin, picnic shoulder, and ham. During the economic depression in South Korea there have been observable changes in consumer preferences. There remains steep competition among the pork exporting countries in terms of gaining share in the international pork market. If specific consumer preferences would be considered carefully, there is the possibility to increase the amount of pork exported to these countries.

• Korean journal of food and cookery science
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• 제32권4호
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• pp.492-502
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• 2016

Purpose: The purposes of this study were to identify the segments of the Home Meal Replacement (HMR) market according to food-related lifestyle of Japanese consumers, and to investigate its demographic characteristics, the HMR purchase status and needs of new HMR product development. Methods: A total of 2,720 domestic consumers living in Japan were surveyed using a self-administered questionnaire and 488 responses were returned. Excluding responses with significant missing data, 467 responses were used for data analysis. Results: As a result of cluster analysis, three consumer segments were identified. The diet-highly concerned segment had the highest food-related lifestyle score, followed by the diet-moderately concerned segment, and the diet-unconcerned segment (p<0.001). A significant difference in demographic characteristics among the three segments was found with respect to the type of residence (p<0.05). There were significant differences in the main place (p<0.01) and average expense (p<0.001) for HMR purchases by food-related lifestyle segments. In the case of new HMR products that need further development, 'low-sodium products' had the highest demand scores in all three segments. In the diet-highly concerned segment, the mean scores of demand for new products were significantly higher than those in the other segments (p<0.001). Conclusion: The findings of this study can be used to develop new products for the Japanese' HMR market. The segments identified in this study should be updated and revised regularly to reflect changes in the characteristics of each food-related lifestyle segment.

• International Commerce and Information Review
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• 제15권1호
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• pp.3-34
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• 2013

This research, which was experimented by dividing tangible and intangible products, established the influence that affects recovery for consumers' complaint behavior and behavioral intention as per each different compensation program. In Experiment 1, the consumers, who experienced complaint behavior owing to company's mistake, have preferably recovered through the compensation program offered by the company. However, there was a significant difference in preference recovery between products that caused complaint behavior. According to the study result, the more clear preference recovery was shown in the case of purchasing laptop than the case of dining in family restaurant. Additionally, the consumers' emotion recovery was possible through compensation.; There was a emotion recovery disparity depending on product type between purchasing laptop case and dining in family restaurant case. The consumers, who experienced complaints, were only able to recover their preference, emotion, and behavioral intention through compensation of which recovery was greater in tangible product case than ordinary service. Meanwhile, there was no distinct difference between recovery compensation types even though the products were identical-type ones whereas it appeared that such tangible product which showed greater purchasing effort as laptop computer was more effective in stimulating emotion response. In Experiment 2, the purpose was to find out the difference between complaint behavior and its recovery process shown after purchase by Korean and Japanese college students, who have different consumer purchasing habits. The both consumers of the two countries, who experienced complaint behavior, demonstrated precise difference in preference recovery while the emotion and behavioral intention exhibited no disparity between the two consumer groups. In this experiment, it was learned that Korean college students were show-off purchase type consumers while on the other hand, the Japanese college students were famous product purchase type consumers. Thus, there was a clear difference in laptop computer purchase process and post-purchase evaluation between these two groups. In particular, the Korean college students had quicker preference recovery through compensation than the Japanese college students on account of their tendency to be consciousness of others. Nevertheless, there was no difference between the emotion recovery and re-purchase recovery and therefore, the compensation program for complaints was proven to affect the emotion and behavioral intention.

• Journal of Families and Better Life
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• 제25권3호
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• pp.169-185
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• 2007

The purpose of this research is to analyze Korean and Japanese junior high school and high schools students to inquire into the attitudes these students have towards credit, the importance of credit related education, and the necessity of education on online credit. This will provide an insight into the problems associated with teenage credit related consumer education, and allow a solution to be brought up. The results of the research and the proposal are as follows. First, younger Korean teenagers are more passive in consumption than the same age group in Japan. Second, for Korean teenagers, the amount of allowance and savings were an important factor in the attitude towards credit. In Japan there was a discrepancy between gender groups in the attitude towards credit. Third, personal education sessions for teenagers and follow up is necessary. Fourth, since the current teenage population have been familiar with the internet all their lives, credit education should utilize this medium as a tool. Fifth, when looking into the requests Korean and Japanese young teenagers made on credit web sites, the contents and quality of information is more important than the outlook of the site itself. Sixth, there is a need to provide teenagers, who are accustomed to visual data, information, an experience opportunity, and access to related web sites.

• International Commerce and Information Review
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• 제12권2호
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• pp.291-322
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• 2010

Many companies make active use of loyalty programs to improve their customers' loyalty to the company. Loyalty programs are widely used in various industries and sectors, including oil, telecommunications, credit card, department stores, and internet shopping malls; their performance seems to be successful in building a positive relationship with customers. This study emphasizes the role of affiliate programs in creating loyalty, thereby helping companies to maintain their competitive advantage. To objectives of this study are to investigate which antecedent variables(affiliate program benefit, service company characteristic , consumer characteristic) have significant effects on consumer perceived affiliate program satisfaction and to examine whether these factors have differences between Korean and Japanese consumers. The useful results will provide marketing strategy for marketers of service companies. The results also show that affiliate program is very important in order to maintain relationship with customers in service companies.