1) Case Study :Cross-media Interactive Campaign via Television, Radio and Mobile for Audiences / Chubu Nippon Broadcasting Corp
2) Industry Report:4th Annual Mobile Ad Forum 2006
3) Mobile Research:Mobile Phone Users-Current Status Survey
4) Carrier Trend:Use of Credit Cards on Mobile Expands
5) Japan Cellular Subscriber Data

1)Case Study : Cross-media Interactive Campaign via Television, Radio and Mobile for Audiences /Chubu Nippon Broadcasting Corp

This year Chubu-Nippon Broadcasting Corporation (CBC TV) hosted an exposition called "TV LOVEARTH" in collaboration with the official radio station of the EXPO 2005 AICHI JAPAN. It was a truly interactive program that brought together television, radio and mobile, with the event being carried on a late-night broadcast aired on Saturday, August 20. The concept involved promotional videos for 1970's-80's pop and rock music mixed with commentary from the show's hosts with the program being simultaneously broadcast on FM radio. The program also featured the ability to purchase and download the songs being played. In addition, viewers were able to vote on songs that had been nominated in advance of the program. The program provided a variety of interactive content, such as giving the audience real time access to a blog written by the hosts and program staff and the ability to participate in a charity auction.

According to a program spokesperson commenting on the background to the show, in the past, campaigns that brought together the mass media and the Internet were only carried out on an experimental basis. Since this was the first actual attempt by CBC TV, it was difficult to predict the outcome of the project. Nonetheless, it was able to realize this cross-media event in part because of the cutting-edge IT resources assembled from around the world for the EXPO 2005 AICHI JAPAN.

Although previously mobile has been used for quizzes and surveys aired within a broadcast program, this was the first time that music being featured on the program could be purchased and downloaded immediately via mobile and PC. In the end, even though the program was hardly promoted, the ratings were high and accesses from mobile phones following the program were so high that they nearly crashed the servers.

To drive users from the TV program to the mobile site, a variety of methods were used, including two-dimensional barcodes, site URLs, trigger mails, and Toku Numbers. This information was displayed on screen during the program and the most popular means of access was the Toku Number.
This program demonstrated that, within the increasing fusion of broadcasting and the Internet, the synergy between mobile and TV can play a key role.

2)Industry Report:4th Annual Mobile Ad Forum 2006

On November 16, the "Mobile Ad Forum 2006 (MFA)" mobile advertising and marketing event was held at the La Foret Museum in Roppongi (Tokyo, Minato-ku). The event was put together jointly by three companies: D2C Communications, Mediba, and Japan Mobile Communications. The theme for the 4th annual event was "Preparation and Review for Mobile Advertising." There were a number of participants from the advertising industry and leaders in corporate communications.

The forum began with opening remarks from Mediba President Yoshiaki Kobayashi: "In 2004, mobile advertising generated gross revenues of 108 billion yen. This year these numbers have increased by some 70% to reach 300 billion yen. This is largely due to the increase in data transmission speeds and flat-rate charging for data, which have given increasing value to advertising." Organized under the theme of preparing and reviewing the results of mobile advertising, the event consisted of video sessions, panel discussions and speeches dedicated to leading success cases for the implementation of mobile advertising.

The video sessions focused on reviewing the function and effectiveness of mobile to emphasize it as the mass media closest to the consumer. Next was a panel discussion chaired by D2C Communications President Akihisa Fujita with participation by Kazu Sugimoto (Head of Advertising and Marketing, AFLAC, American Family Life Insurance Company), Yoshihiko Ishihara (Vice-president, G-Mode), and Hideo Shinada (Publisher of Nikkei Entertainment!, Nikkei BP). The title of the panel was "New Value Generated by Mobile Advertisement and Marketing."

The first panelist was AFRAC's Sugimoto. Starting this past Fall, the company launched a sales promotion campaign using mobile. According to Sugimoto, insurance is generally uninteresting to young people, but using mobile he was able to appeal to this audience. One of the values of mobile is that it can be used in the early phases of a campaign to quickly confirm response to a product. He also cited the use of cross media as an important topic for future discussion.

According to Fujita, "Mobile is not just a media for young people. There are a number of cases in which parents and children are enjoying the same sites. G-Mode's Ishihara commented, If you can bring in the mother, you can also bring in the child. Although you can target individuals, it is the ability to bring in the whole family that makes mobile so compelling."
Ishihara went on to comment on one of the additional values of mobile in making use of dead time. "The value of mobile is that it can easily be used while waiting for appointments, or riding the train. Our company has zeroed in on this point, only producing games where you learn the rules by the second time you play it, and everything must be able to be completed within 100 minutes. Although this may go against past practices in game production, it has been worth it, and our users are now 50% female, with 30% of them over age 40, enabling us to reach a hard-to-reach demographic in terms of mobile."

Focusing on this point, Mr. Shinada commented that the business opportunity for mobile lies in how effectively it can make use of dead time. "However," he added,"users get bored easily, so it is necessary to develop really satisfying content, innovative content that people do not get tired of." He went on to emphasize the importance of planning and editorial skills for creating highly entertaining content.

3) Mobile Research:Mobile Phone Users -Current Status Survey

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.

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Result of Survey September6-13, 2005
Respondents: 16,833 Mobile users
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The following is a survey conducted on mobile phone usage in Japan. It was conducted by the Internet-based DTR (Desktop Research) service INFO PLANT Co., LTD (Head office: Nakano-ku, Tokyo, Japan; Masaki OTANI, President, http://www.info-plant.com). Data was collected via a nationwide survey of mobile phone users from the networks of NTT DoCoMo, au, and Vodafone, and based on valid responses from 16,833 users during a one-week period between September 6 and September 9, 2005. InfoPlant is dedicated to the expansion of research using mobile phones.
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<Survey Results Overview>
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Over 70% Access Sites via Mobile "Nearly Every Day"
When asked how frequently they accessed sites via mobile, the most popular response was "nearly every day" (73.8), followed by 2-3 times per week (10.9

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Users of flat-rate data charging were 1.5 times more likely than others to access a site via mobile nearly every day

Regarding the number of respondents who utilize a flat-rate data charging package on their mobiles, the most popular response was "I have a compatible handset and use a flat-rate package" (58.0

When looking at the frequency of mobile site accesses according to whether or not users use flat-rate data charging packages, 57.5% of those without flat-rate charging accessed sites nearly daily, compared to 85% of those with flat-rate charging packages, a difference of nearly 1.5 times. (See Table 2-2)

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Mobile data usage was greater after users adopted flat-rate data charging packages
87% of users Accessed sites via mobile more often than before

When comparing the mobile data usage before and after using a flat-rate data charging package, most users reported using sites more frequently after adopting a flat-rate package, followed by those who used sites they accessed once for a longer time (60%), downloaded more ring tones or ring tunes (45.6%), and sent more mobile emails (36.9%). Looked at by age and gender, the majority of those answering that they now utilized more mobile data as a result of adopting a flat-rate charging package were in the younger age groups (including those who accessed sites more frequently, spent more time on sites, downloaded more ring tones or ring tunes, downloaded more games, downloaded more non-game applications, etc.) (see Table 3-1)

By contrast, among those not using flat-rate charging packages, respondents who said they supposed their usage patterns would probably change if they had a flat-rate package said they would mostly access sites more frequently (66.9%), followed by downloading more ring tones and ring tunes (41.2%), spend greater times visiting the same site (35.6%), or download more games (29.7%). (See Table 3-2).

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<Survey Description>
Questions:
1) Please tell how frequently you access sites via your mobile (select one)

2)Are you using a flat-rate data charging package?

3)Compared to before you had a flat-rate data charging package, has your mobile data usage increased?
If you are not a user of a flat-rate data charging package, what do you suppose would increase if you did use one? (select more than one)
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Survey method: Open Survey, i-mode Tokusuru menu, Tokusuru Information on EZweb, and Tokusuru Info Dept. on Vodafone live!
Survey period: September 6-13, 2005 (1 week)
Valid responses: 16,833
Rate of valid response by gender: male 32.6%, female 67.4%(i-mode: 57.4
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About the Survey Sites
i-mode sites: Tokusuru Menu
For more information, please contact D2C Communications at press@d2c.co.jp

EZweb site: Tokusuru Information
For more information, contact Mediba Corp at ask@mediba.jp

Vodafone live!: Tokusuru Info Dept
For more information, please contact Japan Mobile Corp at publicity@mobile.co.jp
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Q1) Please tell how frequently you access sites via your mobile (select one)

<Table1>(By Gender/Age)

Q2)Are you using a flat-rate data charging package?(select one

<Table 2-1>(By Gender/Age)

<Table 2-2>Frequency of access to mobile sites

Q3): Compared to before you had a flat-rate data charging package, has your mobile data usage increased? If you are not a user of a flat-rate data charging package, what do you suppose would increase if you did use one? (select more than one)

<Table3-1>(By Gender/Age)*Survey Parameter: 9,764 users who have a flat-rate data package

package

<Table3-2>(By Gender/Age)*Survey Parameter: 7,069 people who do not use a flat-rate data charging package

** 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
**********************************************************

4)Carrier Trend:Use of Credit Cards on Mobile Expands

There has been major rise in the entry by mobile phone operators into the credit card business. This trend is expected to grow as mobile operators seek to develop new businesses and sources of revenue.

Introduction of the Credit Card ID
Starting on December 1, 2005, NTT DoCoMo began to make use of the “mobile wallet” as a means of completing transactions. This has begun with the introduction of a new mobile credit brand called “iD.” It can be used at shops equipped with a special reader. This new platform enables the user to make a payment merely by swiping their phone, without requiring them to give their signature, and supports both small micro payments and large payments, and features anti-fraud mechanisms that enable these to be used without any concerns over security. In addition, DoCoMo is providing iD as an open platform to all credit card companies.

In addition, Sumitomo marked the release of the new card with its own service called Sumitomo Card iD on the same day. The Sumitomo card is expected to be introduced at all major electronics shops, including Yodobashi Camera, Bic Camera, and Kojima, as well as major convenience stores, video rental chains nationwide, and other locations. Within a year, the goal is to make the card honored in 10,000 shops around Japan, with 10 million customers.

KDDI and JCG to issue cards
In the spring of 2006, mobile operator KDDI is planning to roll out a credit card that will be recognized as an international brand in collaboration with Credit Saison, JCB, Toyota Finance and USJ/Nicos in the attempt to reach a younger demographic with their own credit cards. At present, one idea has been to create a loyalty point program that is targeted to a younger demographic.

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