1) Case Study 1:Senshukai exploits mobile to promote its new catalogue line
2) Case Study 2:Kose uses PC banner ads and 2D Barcodes to attract users
3) Industry Report:Report from Mobile Ad Forum 2005/The Establishment of New Mobile Marketing Methods
4) Mobile Research:How i-mode users learn about i-mode sites and the sites they visit most
5) Carrier Trend:3G Mobile Services Come of Age
6) Japan Cellular Subscriber Data

1)Case Study 1:Senshukai exploits mobile to promote its new catalogue line

In the mail order industry, changes in the social environment, consumption and taste, along with variation in buying trends make for an extremely volatile business.

 

Senshukai, which has developed the Belle Maison brand targeting women in their 20s and 30s via mail order catalogue, is one of the leading general mail order firms in Japan.

 

This past summer, Senshukai launched a new catalogue geared toward the younger market, called "Petite Belle Maison." As part of its advertising campaign to promote awareness of Petit Belle Maison, the company pursued a branding strategy designed to "make the customer's first contact with the catalogue into a pleasant encounter," according to the company's marketing head. Advertising was focused on fashion and beauty magazines and public transport media in order to reach young women commuting to school or work, with samples being offered at video shop outlets and movie theaters.

 

The advertising program also incorporated mobile media, effectively turning this into a cross-media campaign.

 

According to the company's marketing spokesman, the campaign focused on mobile phones as a medium always close to the target group. Mobile was the point from which they could always request new catalogues, exploiting its immediacy, convenience, and the power of word-of-mouth communication.

 

In the launch campaign, in order to generate additional buzz, users who requested catalogues from the mobile site were given free downloads of original campaign wallpapers. In order to carry users to the site, a Tokunumber was used, allowing users to jump automatically to the campaign site. The number was promoted in women's magazines and on public transportation. The Tokunumber was particularly promoted in public transportation in order to drive more traffic to the campaign site.

 

The campaign showed how the mobile phone, which is well established as a means of personal communication, it is also a highly effective tool for connecting directly with mail order customers.

2)Case Study 2: Kose uses PC banner ads and 2D Barcodes to attract users

Attracting users to a site is one of the major challenges in any mobile promotion. Previously, there has been a lot of use of Tokunumbers in conjunction with other media such as television, newspapers and magazines to drive mobile uses to campaign sites. More recently, another new method has been to use 2D barcodes with mobiles. To facilitate this, new handsets from NTT DoCoMo now feature a built-in 2D barcode reader.

 

Kose, the company which has developed the cosmetic brand !"Fasio," recently ran a mobile campaign which used a combination of banners placed on the Yahoo! search engine portal with 2D barcodes featuring links to the mobile campaign site.

 

Kose's Fasio is a personal care cosmetics brand sold principally at drug stores. The product is targeted at women in their early 20s, with its core target group being among college students. Generally, one of the characteristics of personal care products is that the decision to buy is usually made at the shop while comparing packaging and price with those of other products. However, being the brand that customers favor before going to the shop plays a significant role. For this reason, a high level of brand recognition and familiarity is very important to product success.

 

Along with mass media advertising campaigns rolled out on television or magazines, the Fasio mobile site was created to transmit more detailed information such as how to apply Fasio make-up and so on. On the Fasio mobile site, a monitoring program was created to generate buzz. The program consisted of recruiting monitors to trial test new products prior to their commercial release, supplying the monitors with product samples. Feedback from people who have actually used the product are displayed on a bulletin board for others to see.

 

Banner advertisements promoting the mobile site were also run on the Yahoo! portal. By clicking on the banner, users were transported to a PC version of the promotion site, which listed the mobile site URL in a 2D bar code. To get access to the mobile site, users customarily send a blank email and receive a return link, but usage of the 2D barcode was 2.5 times higher than usual email requests. This demonstrated the significant penetration of 2D barcodes as a simple means of accessing mobile sites.

3)Industry Report:Report from Mobile Ad Forum 2005/The Establishment of New Mobile Marketing Methods

On November 17th, the Mobile Ad Forum was held in Tokyo at La Foret in Roppongi, Tokyo, sponsored by the three industry leaders: D2 Communications (D2C), Mediba, and Japan Mobile Communications (J-Mobile). The event attracted over 650 participants, including leaders from the advertising industry and marketing.

 

This was the third year the event was held, with speakers focusing mainly on the latest consumer trends and their impact on consumer interaction with different media.

 

First, D2C president Yoshiaki Kobayashi opened the event with a presentation on "Expanding Mobile into a Massive Media via Participation of the 3 Industry Leaders."

 

Next, Jam Japan Marketing chief Hisami Oshiba spoke about "Generation Y." Coined in the USA, the term "Generation Y" refers to the generation born between 1977 and 1999. Members of this generation have been using IT since childhood (including PCs, video games, and mobile phones), and have a very different way of interacting with information than preceding generations. The presentation introduced several of the latest numerous trends from the US market. For example, in cases where direct marketing is not effective, "buzz marketing" is used by holding parties to generate buzz among trusted acquaintances. "Media Blending" is also used, combining games or digital content with advertising for greater marketing effectiveness.

 

Next, Dentsu Kansai's head of Interactive Communications Ryuhei Akiyama presented on "The Value of Mobile Media as Seen from a Holistic Marketing Perspective." Mr. Akiyama talked about rise of "active consumers" those who proactively search for product information and communicate about it. This has led to an increasing need for marketing communication that can more organically integrate mass media with interactive marketing, thereby differentiating between mass advertising and interactive advertising. This is important for creating a more valuable overall proposition.

 

Afterwards, Mr. Hironori Hashimoto, head of the Mobile Advertising Committee for the Japan Internet Advertising Association, reported on activities for 2004, including changes such as the establishment of fixed rates for mobile phone packet data. He talked about increased active usage resulting from this change, citing the fact that users on fixed-rate plans tended to browse mobile sites more than 8 times per day, or 8 times more than those on variable rate plans.

 

As for recent developments in mobile advertising, D2C president Akihisa Fujita talked about "3 Toku Billboards," a system which enables advertising simultaneously across all three of Japan's major operator networks. The system enables sponsors who use it to reach all of Japan's mobile consumers.

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 148th Survey Sept.13-20,2004
Respondents: 18,648 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 18,648 i-mode users during a one-week period between Sept. 13 -20, 2004.

 

<Survey Results Summary>
Criteria for replacing a mobile phone: Males buy phones with large, colorful screens, and females are attracted by phone model designs and colors.
=====================================================
<Survey Results Overview>
=====================================================
74.6% of users visit Gift/Survey sites regularly, 61.4% visit Ringtone/Ringtune* sites

 

Asked about i-modes sites they regularly visited, 74.6% cited Gift/Survey sites, 61.4% listed Ringtone/Ringtune sites. Next came News/Weather sites

 

(Table 1)

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80% of users 19 and under visit Ringtone/Ringtune sites

 

Looked at by age, the number of Gift/Survey sites visited by users increased with age. At the same time, the number of Game/Horoscope and Entertainment sites visited decreased as user age increased. In addition, teen users overwhelmingly favored Ringtone/Ringtune sites. By contrast, relatively few teen users visited Dining/Going Out information sites.

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How users get information about i-mode sites: other i-mode sites, mobile email, and magazines
Asked how they learned about i-mode sites, the majority of users cited other i-mode sites (47.5%), followed by mobile email (42.7%) and magazines (38.8%). Looked at by gender, more males cited the PC Internet (23.1%) as compared to only 14.8% of females.

 

Looked at by age and gender, as age increases, so does the portion of males and females who learn about i-mode sites from newspapers and mobile email. By contrast, the portion of males and females who cited magazines as their source of i-mode information was lower in higher age groups. In addition, the importance of word-of-mouth communication was by far most important among male and female teens.

 

(Table 2-1,2-2)

 

* Ringtunes refer to "Chaku-uta," the term which is a registered trademark of Sony Music Entertainment.

=====================================================

<Survey Description>
Questions:
1)Choose from the following all the types of i-mode sites you regularly visit.
2)How do you most commonly get information about i-mode sites? (choose 3)

 

Survey method: open survey, using Tokusuru Menu on i-mode site.
Survey period:Sept. 13-20, 2004 (1 week)
No.of valid responses:18,648
Rate of valid response by gender: male 34.4%, female 65.6%
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Q1) Choose from the following all the types of i-mode sites you regularly visit.(select 1)
<Table1>(By Gender)

 

Q2)How do you most commonly get information about i-mode sites? (choose 3)

<Table 2-1>(By Gender)

 

<Table 2-2>(By Gender/Age)

 

** 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:3G Mobile Services Come of Age: NTT DoCoMo Aims to Sell 10 Million Next-Generation FOMA901i Series 3G Phones

On October 17 at the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo, NTT DoCoMo announced the release of 5 new handsets in its FOMA901i series. Three of the phones (SH901iC, N901 iC, F901iC) feature the built-in FeliCa contactless smart card. The other two phones are the P901i and the D901i.

 

At the press conference for the new FOMA901i series, Managing Director of NTT DoCoMo's Products and Multimedia Services Division Takeshi Natsuno gave a presentation about the high-quality audio and display features of the phones, and voiced his confidence that the 901i series would bring DoCoMo to the 10 million mark in 3G phone sales.

 

First, in terms of audio, the new devices feature 3D sound. All models include stereo twin speakers and expanded functionality enabling users to adjust the direction of the sound. By doing this, the phones give users the sensation of hearing 360 degree surround sound with audio content. In addition, with Chaku-motion (video ringers) or Chaku-uta (ringtunes), the phones handle file sizes of between 300KB - 500KB, and the potential size of ringtone melodies has been expanded to up to 100KB, making for ever higher quality in the audio, voice, and motion video that FOMA 3G users can enjoy.

 

In terms of visual capacity, the phones are preloaded with 3D graphics games titles such as "Everybody's Golf" and "Biohazard," delivering an unprecedented realistic feel. In addition, the new devices are equipped with Flash. Even phone scheduling, signal and battery strength are rendered in Flash animation, providing an even more dynamic look.

 

Furthermore, the phones come preloaded with Java appli tools. All models include a TV scheduling appli, the G-code remote reader. You can of course browse the most recent TV programming information, and the application allows one to search programming by keyword or category, or set scheduling or alarms for favorite shows. A built-in remote controller can be used to control not only the TV, but is also compatible with video or DVD players.

 

Mail functions have also been upgraded. The maximum size for email attachments has been increased from 100KB to 500KB, and the phones can manage the sending of megapixel images or high resolution i-motion video clips. The phones also support "Deco Mail, " which enables one to set images in the body or background of a mobile email. In the past, this functionality was only possible between handsets of the same type, but by using the browser function on non-compatible phones, these features can be enjoyed even by users of non-compatible handsets (including MOVA).

 

There have been no real changes to the much-discussed FeliCa, but due to the anticipated increase of users performing transactions with their phones, all models are equipped with a special security feature known as a "separation lock" that can be activated by calling from a designated phone number.

 

In this way, the FOMA901i series brings to market significant evolutions in terms of richer sound and visual performance, as well as expanded capacity with appli, email, and security features

6) Japan Cellular Subscriber Data

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