Hello, I’m Leo Sato (@slamdunk772), the CEO of applemint, a digital marketing agency in Taiwan!
Today, I’ll talk about the knowledge we gain beyond the challenges of venturing into unknown territory. I will elaborate further, but venturing into unknown territory allows us to understand the contrast between idealism and reality.
While I’m not sure if I can call it a “challenge,” I’ve been trying various things in Taiwan. I plan to try even more this year. Some attempts have been successful, while others have failed.
For example, recent successful cases include using MIJ for an exhibition in Tokushima, recruitment activities using digital advertising, and using Facebook ads to redirect users to LINE. In addition, coordinating initiatives linking owned media and social media is a fairly reproducible success story in Taiwan.
On the other hand, failures include selling non-standard vegetables and supporting Ishikawa Prefecture through a drinking party, among various others. The Ishikawa Prefecture support party ended up being attended only by lab members, which was fun in its own way, but personally, I felt the difficulty of “attracting people.”
In this blog, I hope to share the idealism and reality I’ve come to understand when trying new things.
Contents
Idealism vs. Reality in the Adult Industry
When you hear about the adult industry, some may have a glamorous image in mind. A Taiwanese female university student who interned at my company even harbored a bit of admiration (she said it sounded interesting). However, once inside, the reality can be harsh.
Those referred to as “sexy actresses (pornstars in Japan) ” are mainly divided into three categories:
・individual actresses,
・planned individual actresses,
・planned actresses.
*We will call them “actress” from now on.
By the way, these are just their names. “Individual actresses” shoot only one film per month and receive relatively high compensation.
However, the high pay was in the past, and now even individual actresses reportedly receive only around 300,000 yen for a film (top-tier actresses usually earn over a million yen).
Those who become individual actresses are few, while the rest handle several video shoots every month.
Through discussions with various adult industry stakeholders during this sex education event, I learned that the adult industry is as challenging as being an athlete. For example, even sexy actresses under contract as individuals are often quickly abandoned if their debut work fails.
Sexy actresses typically sell the most in their debut work, and if it fails, it becomes very difficult to recover from there. Therefore, if the debut work of an individual sexy actress fails, they are often quickly abandoned, and their contract as an individual actress is not renewed.
It’s truly a severe world.
Entertainers, athletes, and artists living in such a harsh world are constantly battling stress. Through this event, I realized that I lacked consideration for the stress they normally feel, and I made some blunders in attracting attendees to the sex education event (we should talk about it over drinks someday).
Entering the entertainment world, I understood the harsh reality and difficulty of monetization. I also learned how much people today are conscious of “time performance.”
The Reality of Selling Non-Standard Vegetables
Selling non-standard vegetables is not profitable at all. Non-standard vegetables are free, but considering venue costs and marketing expenses, it does not generate enough revenue to sustain the company.
Suppose, for example, a non-standard vegetable event adopts a model where you pay 300 NTD and can stuff your bag with vegetables. If, like in this case, only 10 people attended the event over 2 hours, the revenue would be 3,000 NTD (300 NTD x 10 people).
Subtracting venue, staffing, and transportation costs, it becomes a definite loss.
Also, although organic vegetable farmers in Hualien cooperated with us this time, they did so because I know them personally and because we only hold events once every six months. If I were to ask the farmers for free vegetables every week, it wouldn’t be profitable for them, and they would probably get annoyed with me.
As I mentioned in a past blog, if environmental protection or sustainability were profitable businesses, everyone would have done it a long time ago. Since that’s not the case, businesses claiming to be environmentally friendly don’t progress easily.
These facts about SDGs became clear only through experience.
That said, I believe that by involving more people through events like this, I can connect my acquaintances and create more interesting connections. If we can expand our network horizontally, I think we can do even more interesting things, so I want to continue.
Failure in Attracting Attendees to Ishikawa Event
The Ishikawa Prefecture support party failed to attract attendees. I’m not criticizing those who attended, but from the aspect of “attracting people,” not many showed up.
The reason is simple: there was no compelling reason to attend. What I’ve learned from organizing events is that people primarily attend events for three reasons:
1. Meeting new people (making friends, networking, etc.)
2. The event itself is enjoyable.
3. Trust in the organization or individual hosting the event.
I think the reason why Akihiro Nishino(A Japanese entertainer)’s events are successful is that they meet all three criteria. He targets business owners, creating opportunities for them to meet, and monetizes them effectively.
When organizing events, if you can meet these three criteria, it’s perfect. If not, you need to meet at least one of them; otherwise, attracting attendees will be challenging. I realized this too late. While some people found the sex education event itself interesting, unfortunately, such people were in the minority.
So, my sex education event didn’t meet any of the above three criteria. That’s why attracting attendees was difficult (after analyzing it calmly)…
However, there’s still time, so in the future, I plan to create opportunities for interaction among participants, mainly focusing on Japanese corporate employees, to increase the reasons for attending (I’m thinking about how to exchange business cards since it’s a movie theater).
Personally, I regret not being more conscious of #1 when approaching companies and calling for participation… (that way, monetization would have been easier…)
In 2024, I’m also considering hosting J-pop nights, anime song nights, and resuming DJ activities. Again, I want to focus on the three criteria mentioned above.
The idea for DJ events has been around since I launched applemint lab, and I’ve secretly targeted the Friday night slot from 9:00 to 11:00.
I hypothesized that there’s a demand for socializing from 9:00 to 11:00 PM, and I want to experiment with it.
At 9:00 PM, people usually finish their first meal and either head to a second venue or continue drinking. People in their late 30s or older generally want to head home or to a second venue by 11-12 PM, right? (That’s me, at least).
I think a karaoke session where everyone can participate during this time would be good, but currently, there are hardly any alternatives besides snack bars in Lin Sen…
So, wouldn’t it be interesting to provide a place for everyone to hang out at this time, regardless of gender? And if we can make noise while listening to J-pop from the 2000s, that would be great.
If successful, this event will meet the second criterion.
Moreover, if I can connect event attendees, it will meet the first criterion, leading to the third criterion.
So, I’ll continue to try various things in the future, so please look forward to it!
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