Japanese Materialism: A Comparison Between the New Breed and Second Baby‐boomer Age‐cohorts Available to Purchase

Japanese materialistic behavior and consumption trends are examined by comparing age‐cohort differences between the Japanese “new breed” and “second baby‐boomer age‐cohorts”. Price perception, brand loyalty, and shopping‐information sources of the two age‐cohorts are also assessed. Results suggest that the Japanese new breed is more materialistic, sensitive to prestige, brand loyal, and likely to use media as their shopping information source as compared to second baby‐boomer. On the other hand, second baby‐boomers are less materialistic, value conscious, less brand loyal, and more likely to rely on word‐of‐mouth communication as their information sources as compared to the Japanese new breeds.