1) Case Study 1:Convenience Store Instant Gift Campaign/Kameda Seika
2) Case Study 2:Using Mobile for Pre-launch Promotion of a Teen Magazine/Takarajima-sha
3) Industry Report:Strengthening the Connection between the Mobile and the Real
4) Mobile Research82% of users have participated in mobile campaigns they learned about outside of i-mode:
5) Carrier Trend:NTT DoCoMo Promotes Use of Video Phones
6) Japan Cellular Subscriber Data

1)Convenience Store Instant Gift Campaign/Kameda Seika

Unlike campaigns for new products, campaigns for long-selling products rely on their ability to vitalize the market. It is also necessary to continually emphasize the familiarity of the product and remind the customer of the product. Kameda Seika carried out such a campaign in combined a promotion listed on the product packaging with mobile phones.

 

In its summer campaign to promote the long-selling salted snack and nut product called Kaki-no-tane, Kameda Seika’s target group consisted of males in their 30s and was conducted exclusively via convenience stores. Whereas postcard response-based campaigns targeting housewives can be carried out in parallel at supermarkets, these types of more traditional campaigns cannot be used to reach males in their 30s. To appeal to such a target group, the campaign was limited to the convenience stores that this age group visits so frequently, as well as to their mobile phones.

 

In the campaign, participants had to use a serial number on the interior of the product packaging, requiring consumers to first buy the product. Buyers were able to input the 14-digit serial number into their mobile phones and immediately find out whether they had one or lost. Those who did not win were given a free gift consisting of a ringing tone. Everybody inputting their serial number was guaranteed some kind of gift to increase the incentive to participate in the competition. In addition, by inputting the Tokusuru number shortcut, all participants were led to access the special campaign site on their phones.

 

By using free ringing tone gifts and a Tokusu Number, the campaign achieved a greater number of accesses and than on previous occasions. The campaign also helped drive steady growth of product shipments. Kameda Seika has recognized firmly how important the mobile is as a daily tool for its customers, and it has also seen how effective it can be in increasing participation in and awareness of such promotional campaigns. According to the company, the use of mobile phones bore definite results, making this a truly interactive campaign rather than a one-way affair, thereby reinforcing the company’s desire to further utilize this kind of interactivity in the future.

2)Case Study 2:Using Mobile for Pre-launch Promotion of a Teen Magazine/Takarajima-sha

Although there are many cases of mobile being used to promote new magazines, the majority of cases are only short-term or temporary campaigns. This fact highlights the distinctive approach adopted by publisher Takarajima, which launched an official content site dedicated to its new title “Teen Girl” even before the actual publication of the magazine.

 

Takarajima has developed various street fashion magazines for different age groups. In pioneering this new market, it started publication under the title “Teen Girl,” targeted at Tokyo’s Shibuya-area teenagers. With many other competitors in the same space enjoying strong sales, Takarajima needed something to challenge them directly. It therefore launched a mobile service dedicated to Teen Girl in its pre-publication promotional phases as part of an aggressive strategy to reach its target audience via their mobiles, known to already be an essential part of their customers’ daily existence.

 

The Teen Girl mobile site was launched at the same time as the pre-publication promotion, and a variety of methods were use to facilitate access to the site by users, including marketing via posters, leaflets, trigger emails, and 2-dimensional QR bar codes.

 

In addition, in order to drive more word-of-mouth promotion, a “sign up with a friend” campaign was set up. Users could send in a random 8-digit code in an email when signing up, thereby increasing their chances of winning a drawing. This promotion was marketed in a number of venues where people tend to go with friends, such as Karaoke parlors, and was particularly effective.

 

After the first issue of the magazine was put on sale, the concept of the mobile site was shifted away from the initial goal of enhancing brand recognition to driving usage of mobile content on the site. By offering different campaign gifts and refreshing the content, the number of registered users was increased, probably due to viral marketing among teenage girls. The mobile service also offers other advantages. One of these is that it can service provide timely information that cannot be put into the magazine due to the fact that the paper edition is only published on a monthly basis. A mobile email magazine is also sent out to users the day the magazine hits the newsstands in order to promote sales.

 

Moving forward, Takarajima is planning to implement a number of the latest innovative features available on mobile phones, such as situation-based marketing and transactions using contactless IC cards, all of which will make this a service well worth watching.

3)Industry Report:Strengthening the Connection between the Mobile and the Real

We are constantly seeing the emergence of new ways to combine mobiles with other media. In recent years, a number of campaigns have made use of these connections between mobile and other media, particularly using newspapers, magazines, and other formats. Advertisements have come to include URLS and email addresses, and more recently magazines have also started to feature 2D barcodes known as QR codes.

 

Furthermore, we are seeing more campaigns that combine OOH advertising (Out of Home, including outdoor and transportation) with mobile, strengthening this linkage between the mobile and the real, especially with mobile phones figuring ever more prominently in people’s daily lives. . An increasing number of companies are running campaigns that combine OOH and mobiles and include QR Codes or Toku Numbers, featuring them on posters in train stations, train cars, and elsewhere

 

In transportation advertisements, some railway companies have mounted video screens inside train cars, running commercials and joint advertisements. The Keihin Tokyu Railway is trial testing a service that utilizes a wireless LAN to deliver visual advertisements. Some of these have included campaigns that tie in with mobile interaction. Such campaigns feature a Toku Number shown on the screen mounted in the car, which users can input to their phones and be taken to a special campaign site where they can participate in promotions. In the future, we expect to see more advertising services featuring local sponsors or sponsors of consumer-oriented goods that use these video screens on trains in interactive campaigns with mobile phones.

 

In general, a number of advertising services use auto-response emails to enable users to participate in campaigns. One example is known as “Goopas,” a campaign run by Odakyu Railways and the company Omron. Using a system that has been integrated with automated ticket wickets, participating customers who have just exited the ticket wicket will be sent information about local shops located close to that station.

Rapidly changing lifestyles and patterns of people’s daily lives have impact on the way in which they encounter different media. Nevertheless, by combining anywhere-anytime media like mobile phones with OOH, it becomes possible to plan campaigns that will reach people even when they are out and about. In the future, the use of mobile phones will enable companies to produce campaigns that are increasingly tailored to fit people’s daily needs and interests.

 

*Toku Number:These are designated numeric codes listed in magazines or on outdoor advertisements that when input to a user’s mobile phone will bring them directly to a campaign site where they can directly access a service or promotion site.

4) Mobile Research:

In Japan today, a wide variety marketing surveys are conducted directly from participant's mobile phones. These surveys can prove extremely valuable in collecting otherwise inaccessible information about new consumer markets. The survey featured below focuses on the frequency with which i-mode users visit mobile Internet websites.

***********************************************************
Result of 134th Survey June 7-14, 2004
Respondents: 24,507 i-mode users
***********************************************************

The following is a survey conducted to study the number of people who participated in mobile campaigns they discovered through channels other than i-mode. It was conducted by the Internet-based research service INFO PLANT Co., LTD (Head office: Tokyo, Japan; Masaki OTANI, President). Survey data was collected via the “Tokusuru Menu (*) ” on i-mode based on valid responses from 24,507 i-mode users during a one-week period between June 07-14, 2004.

 

<Survey Results Summary>
82% of users have participated in mobile campaigns they learned about from other channels
=====================================================
<Survey Results Overview>
=====================================================
In the survey, 82% of respondents said they participated in campaigns discovered through channels other than i-mode. In terms of these sources, 63.1% of users reported they learned about them from information printed on the packaging of a product they had purchased. This was the most popular response among users who reported learning about mobile campaigns from media sources other than i-mode itself, followed by those who learned about campaigns in magazines (57.6%), the Internet (27.7%), TV (25.4%), and newspapers (23.8%). Looked at by gender, a greater number of men selected the Internet as their source of mobile campaign information (males 35.8%, females 24.5%), with more females specifying information listed on product packaging (males 52.5％, females 67.4%) (Table 1-1). Looked at by gender/age, there is an increase in the number of older respondents including women whose answer was newspapers. Looked at by gender/age, as age increases so did the number of males and females whose source was newspapers. At the same time, fewer women cited the Internet or magazines. In addition, females and males in their 20s and 30s were more likely than other age groups to cite information listed on product packaging (see Table 1-2).

 

81.2% of respondents have participated in mobile campaigns found outside of i-mode

 

Some 81.2% of respondents said they had experience participating in mobile campaigns they had learned about from sources other than i-mode. There were no noticeable differences in gender, although looked at by age and gender, the proportion of respondents with such experience was relatively lower among women over 50 (68.3%). (See Table 2)

 

<Survey Description>
Questions:
1)What are the main ways in which you have learned mobile gift campaigns, outside of i-mode? (Select up to 3)
2)Have you ever participated in a mobile campaign that you have learned about from a source other than i-mode? (Select 1)
3)What were the reasons you did not participate in a mobile campaign you learned about from a source other than i-mode? (Select up to 3)

 

Survey method: open survey, using Tokusuru Menu on i-mode site.
Survey period:June 07-14, 2004(1 week)
No.of valid responses:29, 883
Rate of valid response by gender: male 28.7%, female 71.3%
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Q1)What are the main channels from which you have learned about mobile gift campaigns, outside of i-mode? (Select up to 3)
<Table1-1>(By Gender)

 

<Table1-2>(By Gender/Age Group)

 

Q2)Have you ever participated in a mobile campaign discovered via a source other than i-mode? (Select 1)

 

<Table 2-1>(By Gender)

 

Q3)What were the reasons you did not participate in a mobile campaign you learned about from a source other than i-mode? (Select up to 3)
<Table 3-1>(By Gender/Age)

 

<Table 3-2>(Based on whether or not user has experience with a mobile )

 

** Questions and Interviews for this survey**********
INFO PLANT CO., LTD.
Email:info@info-plant.com
TEL :+81-3-3367-1967, FAX :+81-3-3367-1961
**********************************************************

5)Carrier Trend:NTT DoCoMo Promotes Use of Video Phones

This year, we have seen substantial growth of next-generation mobile services in Japan. 3G phones possess a number of new enhanced functions, one of which is a video phones (there is no video-phone functionality included with au’s next-generation phone services). NTT DoCoMo’s 3G mobile service, known as FOMA, currently boasts some 5.3 million users, as compared to Vodafone’s 3G service, which has 240,000 users as off the end of August 2004. Altogether, over 5.5 million mobile users in Japan have video phones.

 

However, we are still quite a way from the day when common use of video phones will become a reality. There are several reasons for this. One is that at the time the service was introduced, there were very few users with video phones, and many users did not have anybody with whom they could make video calls. This problem will gradually disappear as the overall number of users grows. Another barrier has been that many users do not really understand how to make use of video phones. Video phones are a new mode of communication. The ability to carry on a conversation while sending and receiving video images opens up multiple new possibilities, but is nonetheless not an easy thing for users to grasp right away.

 

In such an environment, NTT DoCoMo has taken steps to drive usage by implementing a special discounted usage campaign that gives users up to 500 yen a month off on video phoning for up to two months. In the campaign, it offered revolutionary text-and-short movie video content for video phone users, and featured scenes from the TV drama “Love Season.” Users could dial a number using a video phone and watch an episode of the drama, which was based on a work written by best-selling novelist Yoshi. (This was based on a text-based mobile phone novel published on a mobile site that was converted in to a novel and became a best-seller, selling some 2.l million copies).

 

The goal here was to give users a chance to experience video phones in order to teach them to appreciate how fun and useful they can be. The Love Season drama focuses on romance between two young people, and is filled with episodes of them talking on their video phones every day, including scenes of them sending clips of scenery on trips, showing them their friends, sharing important memories, singing songs, and more. One of the other major aims of the campaign was to provide to those users who already had video phones but had never used them with an opportunity to try them out

 

The technology behind video phones has been around for some time, but it has taken their incorporation into mobile phones to bring about the scenarios where ordinary people can use video phones in a casual way. Yet while this has opened the way for general spread of an entirely new mode of communication between individuals, there is also great potential for the use of video phones in a range of fields, such as medical and foreign language services and so on.

6) Japan Cellular Subscriber Data

Here is the latest Japan cellular subscriber data for your reference.
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