The annual D&AD award winners have been announced with a ‘Yellow Pencil’ going to an interesting campaign by Tokyo-based agency Hakuhodo for snack food client Tohato.
The World’s Worst War used two new spicey snack flavors as opposing forces and engaged players to invite friends, thereby increasing their own personal rank, to join forces of either the Habanero Evil Army or the dreaded Satan Jorquia… Yikes. Better to watch the video!
The Record Industry Association of Japan has just released the RIAJ Yearbook 2008, its annual roundup of sales figures, statistics and trends from the previous year. As expected, the CD sales continued to decrease for the ninth straight year. However, total recorded music sales are up for the third year running, thanks to strong growth from the digital sector – or more specifically from the mobile sector, which accounts for the bulk of digital music sales in Japan with full-track downloads rising 91% over the previous year.
Bandai Networks has announced that as of today it will offer a custom mobile service based on their popular Gundam character through KDDI’s ‘Au one avatar’ platform. Members will be able to create and update their own unique avatar from an initial choice of three characters; “Mobile soldier Gundam”, “Gundam SEED DESTINY”, and “Fmofmo” which can then also be used across several of the carriers other Au one portal destinations.
Backed by their telecom operator partner SoftBank Mobile, and with Hillary Duff as the campaign face, SoftBank Mobile held splashy launch parties in locations around Tokyo this week-end. Drawing attention to the companies branded offerings, with over 3 million content subscribers established in Japan over their last seven years operating here, the new MVNO is bullish about it’s domestic market potential. They have indicated a target segment focus, young women, and have a strong industry partners in SoftBank Mobile, including Yahoo!, to run a viable service offering.
The Pocket Film Festival in Japan, showing movies made entirely on mobile phone cameras, kicked-off today in Yokohama. Forty-eight films, chosen from more than 400 entries from 18 countries — including Japan, Singapore, China, South Korea and Germany — will screen in competition at the weekend event, organized by the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music. The competition has two categories, one for films to be shown on regular screens and the other for films to be viewed on phones. The winning film will receive 500,000 yen (US$4,500).
We’ve had a few contacts about the Yahoo! Kids Filter article (no, unfortunately it’s not a mute button) posted earlier in January. Thankfully the boys over at Infinita have waded in and they managed to pull together more details about this whole murky underworld of regulations, and exceptions, for mobile content in Japan.
