Singapore, May 29, 2015 - MicroAd, Inc. (Headquarters: Tokyo; CEO: Kentaro Watanabe; hereinafter referred to as “MicroAd”), the leading Online Advertising Platform company in Asia, today released the findings of a survey on Southeast Asians’ attitudes, perceptions and attachment towards cherry blossoms. The survey was conducted in the top four SEA countries with the most visitors to Japan, namely Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia, via GMO Research's consumer panel.

Survey Outline:
Survey Period: 3rd – 8th April 2015
Countries surveyed: Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia
Sample size: 1200 (300 samples from each country)
Gender of respondents: Male 50%, Female 50%
Age group of respondents: 20–29 (33%), 30–39 (33%), 16–29 & 40+ (33%)

Key Findings:
• The respondents were asked to rate how much they like cherry blossoms. On a scale from 1 to 5 (1=not at all, 5=very much), the mean scores of all 4 countries are over 3.5 while Thailand has the highest mean score of 4.02.

• Instead of other countries with cherry blossoms, Japan is chosen by the most proportion of respondents in Thailand (77%), Singapore (75%), Malaysia (62%) and Indonesia (44%) respectively, as the country they would visit to see cherry blossoms.

• 39% of the respondents in Thailand have been to Japan for cherry blossom viewing, recorded the highest percentage, followed by 30 % in Indonesia, 22% in Singapore and 20% in Malaysia.

• Despite 27% of the respondents indicated that they have no idea where is the best place for cherry blossom viewing in Japan, more than 10% of them perceive “Tokyo”, “Osaka”, “Hokkaido” and “Kyoto” as the best place.

• The majority (52%) of them have found out about places for cherry blossoms viewing in Japan through the Internet whereas word-of-mouth and books are both ranked the second top source of information (23% respectively).

• 83% of the respondents indicated that cherry blossoms would affect their decision to visit Japan “moderately to very much”; on a scale from 1 to 5 (1=not at all, 5=very much), the overall mean score is 3.56.

• More than half of the respondents are aware of desserts/snacks and drinks made of or flavoured with cherry blossom as well as beauty and personal care products with cherry blossom extract/flavour. However, only 37% are aware of cherry blossom dishes (e.g. sushi, bento, burger). Most of the respondents indicated Internet as the source of information regarding these products of cherry blossom.

• Less than 30% of them have purchased foods/beverages of cherry blossom, most of which indicated “shops in Japan” as the source of products, whereas almost 40% of them have purchased beauty/personal care products of cherry blossom, mainly from shops in the respondent's country.

• Products with the design of cherry blossom are considered popular in these 4 Southeast Asian countries; the majority of the respondents (59%) have purchased at least 1 product with cherry blossom design. The main sources of products vary depending on the product category.

About MicroAd, Inc.
MicroAd is the pioneering ad platform company in Japan and has expanded its presence across the Asia region. Dedicated to provide optimization solutions for online display advertising, it has launched the programmatic ad platforms of both demand and supply sides. There are currently more than 10,000 advertisers and 5,000 publishers using its platforms for effective ad management and programmatic ad trading. It also established a subsidiary “MicroAd Inbound” specializing in Japan’s inbound tourism marketing services in January 2015.

To view the full report, please visit: http://bit.ly/1HNqCtm

Press Contact:
Mio Matsumoto
MicroAd Singapore Pte. Ltd.
10 Anson Road #09-04 International Plaza Singapore 079903
65-6225-9589
http://www.microad.co.jp/en/