Konnichiwa Takako

Sayonara MindShare Tokyo

2 months sounded like quite a long period of time but my stint at MindShare Tokyo is officially over today.  At the beginning when everything was so new and overwhelming I didn’t really have a clue as to what I would do and how I would cope but I’ve managed to get through it, very quickly it feels!

Local mobile maps

A few days ago I went to a place called ‘Jiyuugaoka’ in Tokyo where I found an interactive screen which enabled you to download the local map/directions to shops/discount coupons to your phone just by placing it on a small panel next to the interactive screen.  The mobile has to be ‘osaifu Keitai’ or Felica enabled in order for it to work but if you don’t have one of those phones you can also take a picture of the QR code to download it that way.

Sony Bravia Live Colour Project

Sony started running a campaign for their Bravia TVs a few months back – I think these are the ones that aired in England:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oP5J4W5GQ3w&mode=related&search=
http://www.sony.co.uk/view/ShowArticle.action?article=1182234935514&site=odw_en_GB&source=rss

Anyway, it’s all about colour and as part of the campaign over here, they are running a ‘Live colour wall project’ (until end September, between 7pm and 11pm) which enables you to control the colours of the LED panels on the Sony building in Ginza, Tokyo, remotely from your computer at home. Pretty cool, don’t you think?

Source: Sony Japan

Not sure if you can do this from England but you could give it a go to see if it works:
http://www.sony.jp/products/Consumer/bravia/livecolorwall/

Mobile advertising and the various revenue streams

I went to a presentation the other day which covered mobile advertising and revenues as a whole, and I thought I would touch on it slightly now.

It’s about time I wrote a piece on the mobile networks

So I’ve been writing quite a lot about mobiles in Japan but I don’t think I’ve written a post specifically about the mobile networks out here, I thought I had but having looked through my blog I can’t seem to find it...best to get the basics written down I think!

Watch out Visa, Docomo are coming after your business...

Not only do Docomo dominate the mobile market but they are also expanding to the credit card ‘platform’ business.  With competition rife between the mobile networks, and price plans coming down and hence profit margins coming down, they see the credit card business making up the shortfall.  They launched their own credit card platform called ‘ID’ in 2005, to rival the likes of Visa and Mastercard, followed by an investment of around $1 billion last year in a bank called ‘Sumitomo’ to get a further foothold in the credit card market.

How advertising works in Japan

It took me a while to figure out how advertising works over here as it seems to be so different to anywhere else but I think I’ve got it now, so here goes...

In the UK, you have the media owners, then the agency and then client.  Here, you have media owners, then the sales houses, followed by agency then client – effectively adding another layer in the buying process. 

The changing structures of mobile content businesses

As per my previous blog postings, the mobile content business is big business here and I thought I would describe in more depth as to how it became so huge and how it has, and is, evolving.

I guess first and foremost, you need the technology – however good the content, if access is slow, expensive and difficult the number of users is never going to grow that much.  Thankfully over here in Japan, none of these are a problem any more and hence you find a lot of people surfing mobile sites, giving rise to potentially huge returns if the content is pitched right.

Fun campaign by mobile network KDDI

I came across quite a fun online campaign run by one of the mobile/phone networks KDDI called the ‘Eye Project’: http://eye.kddi.com/

It’s a project which displays users’ videos and pictures as part of a bigger picture in mosaic form.  There’s nothing on the site itself to explain why they’ve created this and how it fits in with their ad campaign: their current ad strap line is something along the lines of ‘Looking at you, looking at your future’, giving the idea that KDDI are looking at their consumers on a personal level and that they are constantly innovating and trying to provide new technology to support each of their lives in the future.  So I guess maybe it’s about looking at each individual and the videos/photos they have uploaded and coming up with something bigger, newer and more innovative?  I don’t really know so make of it what you will...

QR codes

I’ve already made references to QR codes so I thought it was about time I wrote a little piece on it.  QR stands for quick response and they are square shaped codes which, when captured by a camera phone is decoded and more information transmitted direct to your mobile.  They’re usually in black and white but we’re seeing more colour variations on this recently.  If you come to Japan you will see that they are everywhere – from magazines, outdoor posters, receipts, flyers, business cards etc. 

On outdoor posters                       On magazines

On the web                                      ...on food...

...and even on toilet paper!*

*(source:shibukei.com)