One day after the annual 流行語 大賞 (Ryūkōgo Taishō, Buzzword Grand Prix) declared its winners at a gala event on Dec. 1 at Tokyo Kaikan (covered last month in this column), another celebrated announcement made its appearance on the front page of the Nikkei Marketing Journal. Known as 日経流通新聞 (Nikkei Ryūtsū Shimbun) in Japanese, the thrice-weekly newspaper has covered retailing, marketing and distribution since its founding in 1971.

To promote the NMJ in its first year, publisher 日本経済新聞社 (Nihon Keizai Shimbun-sha) came up with a brilliant idea: Each December it would accord special recognition to the products, services and other economic activities that stood out during the previous 12 months. And in a particularly distinctive style, it proclaimed the year's ヒット商品 (hitto shōhin, hit products), lettered with the same elaborate brush calligraphy used by the Japan Sumo Association for its 番付 (banzuke), a traditional sheet used to list wrestlers' rankings just prior to each of the year's six major tournaments. Like sumo, the hits at the top of the list were described as 横綱 (yokozuna, grand champion), 大関 (ōzeki, champion), 関脇 (sekiwake, junior champion) and so on through to the ranks of 前頭 (maegashira, top division rank-and-file wrestlers).

To qualify as a hitto, a product, service or other business activity was expected to do more than merely sell in large quantities. Ideally, it adopted 新技術 (shin-gijutsu, new technology) or some other 特徴 (tokuchō, characteristic) that carved out an entirely new market, or else caused an existing market to change direction, creating new demand. This was important because at some point most markets tend to become 飽和された (hōwa sareta, saturated).