The Last Christmas With Sexy Hot Russian Babes!? Vladimir Putin and WWIII With Russia?

ENTRY: Dec. 13, 2017 5 am. 

I'm in the territory formerly known as the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, affectionately known as Soviet Russia; today? The Russian Federation. 

I wake up early again just like every day. It is very cold. Is this all a dream? I am in the Russian Republic, captivated at a 5-Star hotel in Sochi Russia named "Отель Арфа-Парк." (That's Arfa Park Hotel for all you illiterates.) And there are beautiful women everywhere, and the food is free. I am here at the world famous "Sochi International Film Festival & Awards" event. 

It is the best film festival in all of Russia! (https://www.facebook.com/SochiFilmAwards/)

Oh, and did I say that the Arfa Park Hotel is a really nice luxury hotel?

On the way to some film screenings, yesterday, one of the Russian film directors asked how I liked Sochi. I said, "The people are friendly. Russia is really nice."

"Sochi isn't Russia. You need to go to Moscow." He said as he demonically laughed with his friends. I felt a tinge of danger in Moscow.... It must be different... Why? Because if I were sitting in my hotel here in Sochi, and you didn't tell me where I was, I couldn't really tell it apart from a top hotel in Hawaii, or Thailand, London or Tokyo.

With Tim

Yesterday, I sat and had dinner with four young Russians who live outside of Russia. I talked and ate with Tim (I think his real name is Timovenitch) and Yuri (Yuri is his real name) and Dennis (I won't even attempt to tell you what his real name is) and an awesome Russian babe named Larisa... (I'll try to get a picture of Larisa today... That is, if my smartphone doesn't melt while attempting to take her photo.)

These four people are all about 25 ~ 30-years-old. They are all extremely intelligent and fluent bi-linguals - two of them tri-linguals. As is often the case when meeting foreigners, for a moment, we talked the boring subject of politics.

After just a few minutes, I realized that these people were far and away much more knowledgeable (and realistic) than many of my Super-Hero comic-book reading, TV watching countrymen. 

I was relieved and pleasantly surprised.

Later, I'd talk to my world-traveler, Jet-Setter American movie director friend Stephen David Brooks, who succinctly summed it up, "Yes. It would seem that the more one travels, the more the realization that people all over the world are basically the same. It's the governments that mess things up."

He's right. And that was the crux of the message from the young Russians who have traveled and now live in foreign countries.

What do I want to say here? In a nutshell. I want to say that there is no way we should ever have a war with the Russians. 

EVIDENCE #1: Look at this photo: This is a photo of a red carpet cinema event for the Sochi Film Festival just like we have in Hollywood. But! With a huge difference. Just look at those two walking up there! We can't go to war with these people! In America, we have Disneyland and everything, but in Russia, they have the real fricking Snow White and Cinderella* living there! I wouldn't be surprised to find out that A.A. Milne's "Hundred Acre Wood" is actually named "Hundred Hectare People's Community Forest" and is really located somewhere near Kursk and that Winnie the Pooh actually holds a Russian passport and his real last name is Poohkovik! 

What kind of savage animals could bomb Snow White or Cinderella? Not me. Could we ever even conceive of droning Mickey, Minnie, Donald and Daisy at Disneyland? No way! (*In America, that Snow White & Cinderella at Disneyland isn't the real Snow White or Cinderella, they are SAG-AFTRA models/dancers. In Russia, they have the real thing.)

There are Coca-Cola signs everywhere here in Russia. This is at some little Mom and Pop owned diner down the street from the hotel. All the stores sell this stuff... Judging from that, the war was over a long time ago.

Holy Balaclava! Hot Russian babe and bottle of vodka? Could there possibly be any two better reasons against war than that? "Hot Russian babe + bottle of vodka." Case rests, your honor.

Basic reasons to never have a war with the Russians:

1) Basically, they are just like us.

2) There are lots of hot babes. 

3) They seem to be pretty tolerant of religion and I gather mostly Christians as I am seeing Christmas shit everywhere.

Christmas tree in hotel lobby. Cute girl waves from behind the counter.

4) They have, McDonald's, Burger King, Coca Cola as well as giant-assed Snickers bars, Kit Kat, M&Ms and all sorts of the same stuff we have.

Yes. That's what you think it is.

5) They have gone Japan crazy too. They even have Karaoke. Yes. You read that correctly: THE RUSSIANS HAVE KARAOKE TOO! 

6) Oh, and speaking of Christmas... Just another BIG reason we can never go to war with the Russian people and that they are just like us; Not only have they have imported all the things we love in the west: Junk food, junk culture and they have Christmas commercialism and giving presents too (or were they first?) But not only THAT, ladies and gentlemen, probably the worst thing that they ever imported from the west, and you'll be able to relate to the untold suffering this has brought upon those poor Russian brothers and sisters of ours, is that at Christmas, they have to suffer listening to that God-damned Wham song "Last Christmas" over and over just like we do!!!! Hell on earth. 

What hath we wrought???????

My friends, we must make forever lasting peace with these good Russian people.... Not only do they eat Whoppers, Big Macs with fries, eat shit like Snickers bars and drink Coca-cola, they must endure listening to Wham every Christmas like we do in the west!!!!

We simply cannot make war on these wonderful people. They listen to Wham's "Last Christmas"!!!!??? Haven't we made these people suffer enough?

Russian beauty singing in front of a bar that offers Karaoke. She was so sweet and nice. Maybe I'll go there tonight and sing Russian Karaoke songs?

NOTE: Some of you alert readers might be saying, "Wait a minute! Mike mentioned Valdimir Putin in the title of this article!" Some might remember my post from last week: The Russian Embassy, Vladimir Putin, Natasha and Me - Another True Story (https://modernmarketingjapan.blogspot.ru/2017/12/the-russian-embassy-vladimir-putin.html)

I wrote: 

"In September, I went to Raindance Film Festival in London and met my hero Johnny Rotten, former lead vocalist of the Sex Pistols... 

Now, in December, I am going to Russia. Can I meet my other hero, Vladimir Putin, president of the Russian Federation? I think so. Yes! 

My wife said, "That's crazy. You can't compare a punk like Johnny Rotten to Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia!" 

She's right, I suppose. Johnny Rotten has been famous for 40 years!"

So, I have been trying to arrange to meet Putin every day since I've been here. I have even learned the phrase in Russian, "I want to meet Vladimir Putin." "Я хочу встретиться с Владимиром Путиным." (YA khochu vstretit'sya s Vladimirom Putinym.)

You probably won't believe me, but my friends who know me well will not be too surprised that I am walking around and saying to people I meet "I want to meet Vladimir Putin" (besides "Good morning" = "Doubra utroa.")

Some Russians laugh. Others just look at me funny.

BUT! Yesterday, one guy told me his best friend is a friend of Putin's... See? Now I am only two or three people away from meeting Vlad and drinking vodka shots with the dude for world peace!

I have 4 more days in Russia to meet Valdimir Putin....Destiny will not be denied!

POST NOTE: Just now, at breakfast, I asked some people if it were possible for me to drink vodka with the Russian Mafia. The security guys all seem like they could be mafia, but if they are, they are strangely missing tattoos. He told me, "No. They are not mafia. But they are all ex-KGB agents. The boss is a formerly high ranking Russian General who won one of Russia's highest military honors."

He pointed me to the guy.... Aha! So that's why he is wearing a suit with a giant red star medal on it! 

I think I can go drinking vodka with these guys tonight. Now I know someone who has met or may even know know Putin personally... The trail grows warmer!

Stay tuned. 

Okinawa (Ryukyu Kingdom) King & Queen Contest 2010

Okinawa is also known as the Ryukyu Islands. Every year they celebrate their heritage with a King and Queen contest. I thought you might like this very well made video!

From Discover Okinawa:

Discover Okinawa:

The 17th Shurijo Castle Park Mid-Autumn Celebration
Ryukyu Kingdom King & Queen Contest 2010
September 19th, 2010
At Shurijo Castle Park: Una Forecourt
国営沖縄記念公園（首里城公園）：御庭特設ステージ
In Naha City, Okinawa

On Ryukyu Kingdom King & Queen Contest, 10 candidates, 5 men and 5 women, promote themselves on the stage.

After chosen, the preceding year king and queen show up with full dressed and perform inheriting ceremony.

New king and queen will participate in annual events held in Shuri-Jo Castle such as the Sappo Gishiki (Enthronement Ceremony for A New King), the Ryukyu Kingdom Royal Procession and the Chohai Okishiki (New Year's Ceremony.)

Please join "Visit Okinawa Japan" / "What's up! Okinawa" Fan page:
Facebook http://www.facebook.com/pages/Visit-O...
Zoome http://circle.zoome.jp/OKINAWAnet

Burger King Japan introduces the "All You Can Eat Whopper" campaign.

Now, really. When you stop to think about this... It is really disgusting.


Asahi.com news has announced: From yesterday September 16th until October 15th Burger King Japan has introduced their new promotional campaign for Japan. For ¥750 yen, you can eat all the Burger King Whoppers you like within a 30 minute period.


バーガーキング・ジャパンは、１６日～１０月１５日までの期間限定で、ハンバーガー「ＷＨＯＰＰＥＲ（ワッパー）」のおかわりができるようにする。「“Ｂ”ｉｋｉｎｇ（バイキング）」と銘打った初の試み。ＭＭサイズ以上のバーガーと飲み物やポテトなどのセットメニュー（基本価格税込み７５０円）を完食すれば、３０分間は追加で注文できる

I think this campaign is basically a "Eat 'til you puke" type of concept.


What kind of an idiot thought of this?


In Japan, it is well-known that, generally, if you do not capture the imagination of women, you aren't going to make it. I think that a campaign like will not only NOT capture the imagination of the women in this country (a country that is constantly in diet-craze mode) but it will be a massive turn-off. Burger King people... If you don't go for the women in Japan, then might as well close up shop right now... Fat Japanese guys will probably setlle for convenience store bento, thank you. 


Just the sound of this campaign "smells" bad.


This kind of campaign might go pretty well in some places in the USA where obesity is the norm, but in Japan, this sort of campaign will just turn people off.  


Burger King had shops in Japan before but they went bankrupt... I think with campaigns like this, they will probably go bankrupt again.


I asked my Japanese wife what she thought of this and she said, "Who is going to eat that? Nobody!" My 6-year-old son said, "That makes me want to throw up."


Yes. This is an idiot promotion. If Burger King had any brains or a promotion company that understood Japan at all, they be doing something else like just giving away a thousand burgers to the first 1000 customers or something. It is basic and common sense that, after any sort of food, music, entertainment, whatever, you always leave with the audience wanting more....


With all-you-can-eat Whoppers you will leave with the audience wanting to throw up and never even wanting to smell those burgers again. This promotion is a royal FAIL! 


Thanks to my good friend Graham Carpenter for turning me onto this.


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Keywords: Burger King, Mike Rogers, Hamburger, Marketing Japan, Whopper, Mike in Tokyo Rogers, all-you-can-eat

Airplane 4! Adventures of .com Domain with .jp Sub-Folder Fools in Japan.....

By Mike in Tokyo Rogers

I am often simply astounded by the foolishness of companies from the west that come to Japan and think that they can control what is going on here from 6,000 miles away.

As is well-known, "Japan is a different animal altogether." What I'm talking about is how many companies have .com domains that they use for Japan and add a /jp subfolder.

I could give you a litany of examples of foolish companies that do so, there's hundreds of them in Japan. Why do they do this? It defies theory, logic, simple math and common sense... (It also completely ignores what other companies are doing and doing so well as is shown by a simple comparison of competitors on a Google search).

I wonder if the supposed "experts" on the Internet running these .com domains back in the States or Europe bother to read what Google has on their blog everyday. It seems that they don't. You'd think that they'd keep up with the latest information, but, alas, I guess not.

I found this mistake in execution the other day on a very famous airlines web site in Japan and pointed it out to their Japanese staff, who, in a flabbergasted fashion, threw their arms in the air, shrugged their shoulders and said, "We know. But HQ won't even discuss changing it."

Well, I see a problem on two sides here. One, is an HQ that is not keeping up on current information and may have a control-freak problem and the second is a Japanese staff who do not have the desire and drive to succeed enough to study up on the problem and the balls to stand up and explain such a vitally important problem to the HQ. (But, to cut the Japanese staff some slack, perhaps this is a problem of company culture). How could anyone, if they understood the problem, not be able to explain to HQ why a .jp or .co.jp site is critical to success in Japan is beyond me. It is so very simple.

I mean, seriously, whatever side you look at it from, what's the point of having boots on the ground in a local area of they do not, or cannot, report faithfully the facts on the ground to HQ?

I've heard this same sort of thing before from other airlines, "Oh, HQ absolutely won't do it...." But when we took the time to explain it to the in-charge here in Japan, and they expressed an intense interest in understanding why, once they understood then they had the guts to demand an audience with HQ...

Guess what? Those companies do have domestic domains now.

Just two of the big names include:

* Virgin Airlines (no surprise there for aggressive and smart marketing)

* Air New Zealand (ditto - painting naked ladies!? See the video that wowed over 5 million people here.)

(Also let me put in a plug here for my favorite European destination, Croatia, too)

* Croatian Government Tourism (www.croatia.jp)

Why have these organizations jumped in front of the pack to setup .co.jp or .jp domains before the rest of the foreign companies and organizations? It's just plain smart business.

How an HQ in 2010 could be so dense and protective of their jobs that they actually damage the company profitability, by being so obstinate, is a crime in my mind. The only explanation can be that they don't understand the problem.

Make no mistake about what we are talking about here. We are not talking about company politics or protecting someone's position; what we are talking about here is the absolute bottom line. We are talking about company profits. How in the world someone could be so obstinate and closed minded that they would not hear out rational argument on a subject (especially a subject that changes and evolves as fast as the Internet) is no less than incompetency or gross dereliction of duty.

Let me put on my corporate hat here and say that employees need to sacrifice and go the extra step for the good of the company. Sitting on their duff and shrugging their shoulders is not getting the job done. The Japanese staff are definitely smart enough and should be aggressively compiling irrefutable data to build their case.

You'd also think that these airlines companies that all lost huge amounts of money last year would be actively seeking out more and better ways to better their service and increase passengers while increasing profit per passenger. Especially since online bookings very profitable for an airlines... These airline's  online booking business in Japan must be hurting from these poor setups.

I wrote the basic theory about this concept about .com versus .jp here. It is written so simply that I suppose even the people at airlines HQ's can understand it.

Now, I will explain mathematically why a .com/jp (or even a www.jp.airline.com site) is not effective. A .com/jp site is not effective because .com/jp is a subdomain. It is not given priority in any search. There is a good reason for it.

This is very simple math, so please pay attention airlines folks. There won't be a test after this article, but it could save your job because if you are here and do not demand this to be fixed (or, if you are in the USA and are dim enough to insist that your .com domain with a sub-folder or sub-domain is sufficient for world-wide use... Get ready for a job change, because someone is going to come along soon and bump you out of a job.) This is not just theory or wishes anymore, this is simple grade-school mathematics.

It's called persistence and striving for excellence.

But back to the problem...Google search engine, for example, uses an algorithm for search. (The new Google algorithm system is coming online in Japan in a few months. Read about the US version here. When that new system comes to Japan, companies operating in Japan had better be ready.)

If a .com is the domain, then on a Google search it gets 100% priority (this is why .co.jp and .jp sites get 100% priority in Japan)... If that very same .com domain has other languages as sub-folders, then that means each sub-folder shares in a percentage of that domain. If the .com domain is setup with japanese as the basic language - and not a sub-folder or sub-domain of English - then the .com domain works fine.

But this is a problem of language and bit space taken by hierogylphics... er, I mean kanji.

Understand? If there are five languages; then the sub-folder will give them each 20% on a search for a certain term. If there are ten languages, each will only get 10% returns... And so on...

In the case of most foreign airlines in Japan, they have dozens of languages in their sub-folder so Japanese gets about a 5% weight (if that much) in a Google search using Japanese language here in Japan. That means that these airlines voluntarily throw away 95% (more actually) of their possible Japanese customers who do random searches, using Japanese language and kanji, on the Internet.

People who search "航空" (Airlines) will get domestic airlines using a Japanese language based search as their #1 result. (Of course, but this doesn't serve the foreign airlines goals well at all.)

Try any foreign carrier and insert their SEO into a Google search (on Google.com or Google.co.jp - it doesn't matter)... The English based .com with /jp sub-folders won't even show up the foreign airlines in the top ten page returns.

Of course, in a search for a very common term such as "航空券"(airline ticket) the top four results of 24,200,000 are:

Japan Airlines: www.jal.co.jp

SkyMark Airlines: www.skymark.co.jp

Kokunaisen (a ticket aggregator): www.kokunaisen.com

All Nippon Airways: www.ana.co.jp

Notice anything special about these top returns? By the way, Kokunaisen, the aggregator site is 100% in Japanese, there is no sub-folder or sub-domain for Japan. Kokunaisen.com is the Japanese site. Like I said, any foreign carrier using a sub domain or sub-folder set-up will not show up in the first ten pages of a search.

Anyone with the most basic understanding of how SEO works (with an understanding of how Japanese language is 2 bits per character and Roman alphabet is 1 bit per character) would know that this situation for foreign carriers in Japan is intolerable. Why this continues in a tough market whereby airlines are losing passengers by the day is inconceivable.

The purpose of this blog is to help you to market Japan. I have shown the gross mistakes of many companies in the past including Pepsi, Universal Studios, Wendy's, Burger King, Carrefour, and many more. I explain the mistakes that these big companies make (and, incredibly, keep repeating over and over) so that you don't have to.

Perhaps someone at the airline's HQ in the USA or Europe will see this and wake up the troops. They should. They are losing money with this set-up...

Hopefully, they'll thank me... Doubtful... 20 years ago Otsuya Seiyaku didn't thank me either when I went on a popular late night radio program and said that their product, "Calorie-Mate" tasted like cardboard (Two years later they released Strawberry and Chocolate flavors - while improving the taste of "cardboard" and their sales of Calorie-Mate quadrupled. You know they paid R&D millions to come up with something I could have told them, and did, for the cost of less than a half-a-sandwich).

Anyhow, foreign carriers, I've pointed out that your tires are leaking air in Japan.... What are you going to do about it? Keep driving around on them? Be my guest.

This coming weekend, I will layout more mathematical evidence from a language based perspective why a .com English based site using sub-folders or sub-domains in Japan is a poor way to run any Internet site.

For a hint: Imagine that your site is in hieroglyphics... How is it possible that an English based site, with sub-folders or sub-domains, could possibly return as high of results as a site built on hieroglyphics? This is what your English based .com with sub-folder is doing... Your priority is low, so your will not show up at the top page....

If you are not in the top 5 on the first page of a search, you are not even in the game.

Japanese kanji are like hieroglyphics.

In the meantime, for proper background information that you need to comprehend this problem, (especially if you are not bilingual Japanese/English or Korean/English) see Wikipedia about Altaic languages of which Japanese is one...  People who do not speak two languages probably will have a hard time grasping this concept. It is important to understanding the problem.

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Keywords:

Google search, airlines, Japan, Yahoo, Burger King, Japan airlines, Skymark airlines, Google, Universal Studios, ANA, All Nippon Airways, Wendy's, Delta, Otsuya Seiyaku, Calorie-Mate, Pepsi, Carrefour, SEO