The Importance of a "Sales Point" - Bragging about Economy Class Tickets in a Promotion is Not a Sales Point - it is a Minus Point!

Today I want to give you an example of extremely amateurish marketing campaign that's going on right now in Tokyo and a taste of some quality marketing that will start next month... These both have to do with understanding (or not understanding) what a "Sales Point" is supposed to be.

What's a "Sales Point?" A "Sales Point" is something that should make your audience think, "Wow! That sounds great!" 


A sales point" is supposed to be something extra or special or, as the vernacular goes, "Value Added." Words used to describe sales points are adjectives like, "Deluxe," "Giant," "Extra," "Premium"....  


Whenever you make an ad or sales pitch for your business, service, event or campaign and you add sales points they should be things that make the prospective customer sit up and take notice. They should be something that makes them think, "Special!"


Yesterday, I heard a radio commercial on a Tokyo radio station that just made me slap my forehead. It was a contest to win a vacation for two to Hawaii!


The commercial went like this;


"Something-or-other FM radio station in Tokyo is offering you a chance to win a vacation on Japan Airlines, economy class, for two to Waikiki, Hawaii..." 


Read that sentence again....


"Something-or-other FM radio station in Tokyo is offering you a chance to win a vacation on Japan Airlines, economy class, for two to Waikiki, Hawaii..."???


Economy class!? They're kidding, right? They didn't actually say that in their on air commercial, did they?... Well, yes. They did. 


In the case of airlines tickets, a good sales point would be saying something like, "Business Class" or "First Class" for two. Business class and First class are "premium" and "up-grade." Saying "economy class" is not a sales point. In fact it is a demerit. It cheapens the experience and the lessens the excitement. There was no good reason at all to add that.


Saying "Economy class" could be a sales point if this were an event run by some small organization, but when you are a major broadcasting station in the most crowded city in the entire world with over 35 million homes in your broadcasting area, saying "Economy class" is not a plus in any sense of the meaning....


For the accommodations, did they say, "The cheapest dump motel we could find?" Nope. They didn't. If it's not going to be at least a 5-star hotel, then there's no reason to say anything. Free accommodation sounds nice enough as it is. No reason to add, "Cockroaches no extra charge!"  

Which is better? "Free accommodations" or "The worst dump we could find"?

They should have left out the "economy class" part of the commercial and just stuck with;


"Something-or-other FM radio station in Tokyo is offering you a chance to win a vacation on Japan Airlines for two to Waikiki, Hawaii..."


Like I said, adding the words "economy class" just cheapens the experience and the excitement for the listeners... If economy class weren't the cheapest seats available, I can imagine saying it, but the last time I heard, the airlines don't normally allow people to ride in the tire wells or in the luggage area. 

I doubt that the purpose of the campaign was to create for the listeners an image that this radio station does everything second-rate, but I suspect that is probably the ultimate result.


In June I will be running a campaign with Delta airlines for a lucky couple to win a vacation to the USA for seven nights and nine days - to a destination of their choice - on Delta Airline's Top Quality Premium Business Class... Now THAT'S a sales point. You'll be able to find information about that here this very blog. 


Stay tuned.

Do You Fear Becoming Homeless? Need a Job? Make $400 ~ $1225 a Day With a Vacuum Car in Japan!

Down and out on your luck? Need a job? Do you fear that if you don't get a job soon then you could become homeless? Are you like me and willing to do anything to keep from having to sleep under the bridge? Really? Anything?... Well, welcome! You've come to the right place. Everything written in that headline is true... I know where you can get a part-time job that pays anywhere from about $400 up to $1200 a day with a "Vacuum Car." If you are willing to do anything, short of getting shot at or actual prostitution to make $1200 a day, part-time... Read on...

(Note: By "prostitution" I mean actual "sex services for money" - after all, practically speaking, we're all prostitutes in some fashion of the word!) 

Sometimes you read in the newspapers stories about workers getting paid awesome wages, right? $50, $75, even $100 dollars an hour or more. For example, it was exposed that organizations like Blackwater pay their "contractors" (mercenary soldiers) operating in Iraq $1000 one-thousand dollars a day! That's big bucks! Wow! This irks the typical US grunt (Be all that you can be!) who gets $98 dollars a week (pre-tax) with a bunk to sleep in and all-you-can-eat Spam sandwiches.


A $1000 dollars a day!!! For manual labor? Do you wish you could get a job like that? Well, you can. And I'm here to teach you how... For absolutely free, No emails to send in. No hidden catches, no gimmicks... Just free... All the information you need to know is right here...


Long ago, in Japan, teaching English was the gravy train job like those clowns who work for Blackwater who are now getting paid massive sums of money off the backs of the American taxpayer (they hate them for their freedoms don't you know?) I wrote about how English teachers in Japan were getting paid $50,000 a year and more in Tokyo in 1979, 1984 and Today:

... I know, there were English teachers at our company getting paid, I'd say, on average, ¥700,000 per month. Some were earning over ¥1,000,000 per month. ¥700,000 per month, in 1985, was "only" about $2,756 per month in USD. By 1989, that was about $5,512 per month... And that was for 20 hours a week of classroom time!

Think about that! English teachers were so rare in those days that they were earning, on average, more than $60,000 a year in 1989. People who couldn't get a job mowing lawns back home were pulling down $60 thousand dollars a year teaching part time and sleeping with their students! Since I was a measly liaison, I was only making $80,000 a year to babysit those dumb foreigners (maybe not so dumb, eh?) I even knew a few guys who were making twice that amount. (Read more on that crazy but true story here)

But now, English teaching in Japan has fallen by the wayside as a good income generating endeavor. I think it is still good to pay the bills all the while you learn Japanese and make connections... But English teaching as an ends unto itself? Nope.


Besides that, the entire Japanese economy is in the doldrums. Why, just yesterday I was talking with a friend who is a business owner and he agreed with me when I said that we all had to work twice as much as we did five or ten years ago but we only make half as much money... What to do?


Well, if you are like me, then you think about these things a lot. I know that if I think about them too much, sometimes they freak me out. I'm the nervous type about this sort of thing and there have been times when I've woken up in the morning in a near panic-attack state worrying about my job or whether or not we'll have a place to live and food to eat in six months...


How about you? Have you worried about these sorts of things too?

I also have another problem in that, since I have a family, I can't really just blow what little money money I have on booze and drugs in one last "Hurrah" then go sleep down by the river and become some homeless dude. What will the neighbors think? What would my son say to his friends on the first day at school?


Teacher: "Alright, I want each of you to stand up, introduce yourselves and say a little something about your family..."


First kid: "My dad is the Asia Managing Director for Delta-United Airlines. You might have seen him on Bloomberg TV before."


Second kid: "My dad is president of Amazon-Google Japan. You might have seen him on CNBC Asia TV before."


Third kid: "My dad owns all the Rolls Royce dealerships in Japan and East-Asia. You might have seen him on CNN before." 


My son: "My dad is old guy living under the bridge with the huge beard. If you've ever gone on a picnic down by the river, you might have seen him before."


Naw... I guess I can't do that...


So, anyway, where was I? Oh, yeah... I have a phobia about going homeless; I can't do it. No matter what, I'd have to find a job and it would have to be a good paying job... So, well, that's why I'm here... And, I reckon, that's why you're here too.


Funnily enough, I was thinking about this just this morning when I was driving my son to school when right in front of my car was a "Vacuum Car." 


"That's it!" I thought, "A Vacuum Car!" Bingo!


Get this folks, guys driving "Vacuum cars" get paid huge amounts of money yet the Vacuum Car companies can't get enough staff and retain them to do that job even though the economy is in a down market! In fact, everyone in Japan knows that operating a Vacuum Car is one of the highest paid part time jobs in the entire country!!!... It's been that way for decades! And they always have a shortage of workers!!!! It's a goldmine!


Now, folks, before you get all hot and bothered about the mere notion of part-time job vacuuming cars in Japan and getting a $1000 a day, let me explain that the Japanese have some pretty bizarre ideas on how they take English and bastardize it for use in their own language.

Vacuum Car is a vacuum car, but not exactly the image you probably have when you hear this word. When I first heard his term, I imagined the friendly guy at the full service gasoline station vacuuming out my car. But not so!  


I don't want to go into a long explanation, but modern words from English like, "Google," "Twitter," "Facebook," are said, with Japanese intonation, just like the English equivalents and mean the same thing. Older words like "helicopter," or "escalator," are the same too... But there's many words that the Japanese have adopted that mean something totally different from the original. One that I'll never forget is the word, "Glamor." Glamor to you and me (supposed native English speakers) means something like charm, romance, alluring or excitement. To the Japanese, "Glamor" means...Well, "big boobs"... I suppose, in a way, that is alluring and exciting (if you are a guy)...

I have a notion that this one photo is totally responsible for the Japanese changing the meaning of "glamorous" from one meaning "charm" to one meaning "massive chest of drawers."

  
So, you can guess, "Vacuum Car" is not "vacuuming cars at a gasoline station." "Vacuum car" is for vacuuming but not vacuuming cars... Vacuum Cars are for vacuuming sh*t. Literally. Vacuum Cars are used to vacuum sh*t. And I don't mean little piles of sh*t off the carpet. 


I mean massive Jacuzzi-sized pool sized pools of sh*t.


That's right. They are for vacuuming sh*t... Oh, and p*ss... Sh*t and P*... As well as vomit, toilet paper, used diapers, tampons, condoms, used cooking oil, rubber bands, toys, old magazines, whatever people throw or drop into a toilet.


Now, in a modern society, with modern plumbing, toilets all flush with water and then that water and refuse flows out through the underground plumbing and sewer system to a publicly owned water filtration plant whereby it is partially filtered and recycled as your drinking water. (Bon apetite!) But what do people out in the country do where there is no water running and no underground sewage system? What do people do where their water supply is a hand pump to a natural underground reservoir of water and their toilet is a huge hole dug into the ground under their house?


What do they do when that huge hole starts to fill up and get all stinky with excrement?


Oh, that's where you come in with your Vacuum Car. The Vacuum Car guy is called and he gets about ¥30,000 a pop to vacuum these holes in the ground out. On a good day, they will get called to do three or four jobs in the same locale so those are the days they really, er, "clean up" (pardon the pun).  


But don't think this such a bad job! It's not at all. The story about having to physically jump down into the sh*t holes in the ground after you've vacuumed them out and scrub the walls and floors spic and span on your hands and knees is just an urban myth. It's not true at all. Though a diligent and conscientious employee will stick their head down there to see if any coins were ever dropped and make the effort to pick them up. (Reward is 20% for all monies recovered!) 

Customers get a 5% discount if they call us before the toilets overflow!

Also, I've read the stories written by some satisfied Japanese guys who've done this job and there's all sorts of perks! One guy I read said that, 


"The smell was so overwhelming that it filled every pore of my body. No matter how much I washed, it wouldn't go away. I could still smell it a week later. I couldn't eat anything for an entire week either!" 


Say! Sounds like a great diet plan before the summer hits! Everyone wants to lose weight so they can look their best before they hit the beach in their bikini, right? Me too! Wow! Get paid and lose weight? What a great deal.* 


(*Make sure you scrub with something like Ammonium Chloride mixed with tomato juice and gargle with Lysol everyday for at least two weeks before heading to the beach you so don't smell like a turd!) 


Also, friends, I don't think it's fair to the toilet lover society of the world for people to always be "taking the piss" (pun intended) of the toilet industry. I think it gets a bad rap. Perhaps bodily functions like p*ssing and sh*tting are not as glamorous (oops!) as dance, drama, writing and singing, but trust me, there are times when they are just as important and, dare I say, urgent?

Japan now even has a robot toilet that will follow you around the 

house so that you really can, "Sh*t in the kitchen!"

So let's not poo-poo this great industry, friends... For who knows, the way things are going in this economy, you and I could riding in a Vacuum Car together any day now... 


Oh, and don't worry about me, I don't mind driving... I've always respected the quality of your work so you get to handle the most important duties!... You did say you'd do anything, right?




Toilets can be your friend! To learn more, here's a history of toilets in Japan!

Why I Shuttered my Marketing Agency for Tourism

I had started a new business venture about two years ago. It was a section of my company that was dedicated to tourism and travel and it was a very profitable business actually. Because of my background in the mass media and operating on the receiving end of marketing and advertising companies, I saw how clients were, well, getting ripped off. I knew I do do a hundred times better for clients. I set targets and goals and I saved the clients big money too!


I knew that I could make decent money by arranging huge promotions between client companies for 1/50th the cost of what a major Japanese marketing company like Dentsu or Hakuhodo or even the smaller agencies could do. 


I did arrange many of these campaigns for little cost to my clients. Many were nationwide internet and TV campaigns. Some were huge multi-media tie up with networks, major magazines and non-traditional media. My concept was to find clients that had needs that could be met with a sort of mutual promotional campaign. Everything had to make sense and be organic. Then I spread the costs evenly around to each client. Instead of charging them separately.


So, instead of spending, say $400,000 ~$500,000 (USD) on a campaign (if a sponsor bought it through, say, Dentsu) I could arrange it for $12,000 total or so. I did it too, many times.


Here's a good example:


Domino Pizza Japan wants to get more people ordering online in order to more efficient promote its product and cut down on expenses (telephone ordering is not cost effect nor efficient).


A airlines or foreign tourist board wants Japanese to go to visit their country.


A wine company wants to get the word out on their services.


What should I do? I thought about it and got them together and created a cost effective, mutually beneficial campaign that cost each of these parties next to nothing. 


In this example, I arranged for a vacation to a foreign country for anyone who would join and become a member of the Domino pizza online ordering system. The top winner would get a vacation for two, business class, to a foreign country and hotel. The airline & hotel prize supporting companies would get the massive promotion that goes along with the campaign. The wine company provided all the second place awards: 100 people win a set of quality red & white wine.


The campaign runs for two months!


Domino Pizza prints (get this):
7.8 million newspaper inserts
2 million menus
1.6 million direct email magazine to subscribers
250,000 pizza box top ads
750,000 regular direct mail


Airlines provides 2 business class tickets and 5-star hotel for 4 nights.


Wine company (iwine.jp) provides 200 bottles of quality Coppola wine. 


Cost to Domino if using Dentsu? Approximately $200,000
Cost to airlines if using Dentsu? (considering the reach of ad materials): Approximately $400,000 
Cost to wine company if using Dentsu? Approximately $100,000


My company total charge: $25,000 that's inclusive to all three clients!


You can see the results of this campaign here: http://modernmarketingjapan.blogspot.com/2011/09/two-people-win-vacation-business-class.html


(By the way, the campaign ends on 10/31 so you still have time to join the campaign and win the trip to New York!)


Why did I make these types of campaigns? A two reasons: First, I liked the clients. Second, I think Japanese advertising agency business is way too over priced. If I can help to lower advertising costs, then prices might go down and that makes life better for everyone, no?


But I am thinking about closing this business. 

All vacations come complete with helmet and baton!

Why would anyone close a profitable business, you ask? Well, since it was tied to tourism and travel every time I organize a campaign, something bad would happen:


Here's a list of those bad things:


1) Airlines goes bankrupt
2) Riots in destination cities
3) Huge earthquakes, tsunami and nuke disasters
4) Riots in destination cities


and, finally, 


5) Riots in destination cities, bankruptcies, etc., etc., etc., 


You might think I am just unlucky or have bad timing... But I don't. I am very lucky and have great timing that's why I am out of the tourism and travel advertising business...


Things tied up with tourism don't seem like good ideas in this day and age. The world economy is collapsing and things are getting nasty. As Gerald Celente says, "When people lose everything, they lose it." People are losing it all over the world. Read this from my friend, Mish Shedlock: http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2011/10/occupy-wall-street-protests-go-global.html


... I was about to line up an Italian campaign.... But, after watching that video on Mish's page... I think not!

Two People Win a Vacation Business Class to New York & 5-Star Hotel w/ Domino Pizza

Domino Pizza Japan is having another fantastically fun and exciting campaign! One couple is eligibile to win Business Class round-trip fare courtesy of America's best airlines: Delta airlines and it includes a 4 nights stay at a 5-star hotel in Manhattan courtesy of Delta Tours and all you have to do is signup! There is no purchase necessary!


日本語はこちら：http://www.dominos.jp/topics/110829_c.html

FOR LARGER VIEW CLICK ON IMAGE

That's not all! 100 people will also win a Francis Ford Coppola red and white wine set courtesy of Japan's online wine superstore, iwine.jp! www.iwine.jp is Japan's online wine superstore and you can order in Japanese or English and have your wine delivered right to your door! Go to: http://www.iwine.jp/

FOR LARGER VIEW CLICK ON IMAGE

Domino Pizza is having their Brooklyn Pizza campaign and it's another winner! The campaign runs from August 30 until October 30 and all you have to do is go to the Domino Pizza Japan webpage and signup. No purchase nessessary! The URL is: http://www.dominos.jp/

FOR LARGER VIEW CLICK ON IMAGE

So get in on the action! What do you have to lose? Signup now.... 


Of course, I, Mike Rogers, give my stamp of approval to this great campaign because I helped arrange it! I fly Delta every time I go to the continental USA or to Guam and can vouch that it is my airlines of choice for those routes! 

Join now and win the vacation dream of a lifetime! 


For more information, click here. If that link doesn't work: http://www.dominos.jp/topics/110829_c.html

FOR LARGER VIEW CLICK ON IMAGE

(Hint: Domino Pizza also has an English ordering site that has specials that are an even better deal than their regular Japanese page like their 2 for 1 special! Buy one pizza and get one free! Check the Domino Pizza English webpage here: http://www.dominos.jp/eng/.


Also check the iwine.jp page for great everyday specials on the best in wine selections at www.iwine.jp!

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