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Mobile Marketing: Not Just for Content

Today, WWJ’s Portable Reportable presents a mobile marketing case study involving Shizuoka Bank which used the opt-in “Message Free” free email marketing service on i-mode to grab new, younger customers for its “My Car Loan” campaign. Message Free is just one of the mobile marketing services on i-mode operated by D2 Communications on behalf of NTT DoCoMo. This case study is an excellent example of how a wide variety of consumer-facing companies, not just mobile content providers — like ring tone sites or screen image providers — are using the mobile channel for effective marketing via web, pull email, push email, and even interactive voice. Full program run-time: 4:31Portable Reportable audio updates are short, 3- to 5-minute news items in MP3 format. You can listen via PC or download and copy to your portable player for tomorrow morning’s commute. — Eds.

DoCoMo Releases Premini i-mode Phone

NTT DoCoMo, Inc. and its eight regional subsidiaries announced today the July 1 nationwide release of the premini, [image] the smallest i-mode handset ever released, weighing just 69g and measuring only 90mm (height), 40mm (width) and 19.8mm (thickness). Prior to the launch, premini handsets will be displayed at four shops in Tokyo and Osaka from June 26 to 30. Get a peek at this tiny unit in our our video coverage of the Tokyo Business Show.

NTT DoCoMo's Nakamura: New and Luke Warm!

In a series of subtle and not so subtle remarks that made it clear all is not well at NTT DoCoMo, new president and CEO Masao Nakamura vowed to recover the company’s tarnished record of delivering huge profits. He also said the company would plunge into Asia for global revenue expansion, just like ex-CEO Keiji Tachikawa vowed to do in 2001. Beyond that, Nakamura promised that DoCoMo would put the customer first — but then said he’d put the shareholder first; later, apparently contradicting the propaganda put out by i-mode boss Takeshi Natsuno last week, he said he wasn’t sure how big the market for FeliCa was going to be. But there was plenty of new news broached by Nakamura and he’s set some hard targets in his (somewhat foggy) sights.

NetFront Microbrowser Selected for New NEC Handsets on Hutchinson 3G

ACCESS, a global provider of Internet access technologies, today announced that its NetFront v3.0 microbrowser has been deployed in NEC’s new e616, c616, e313 and c313 handsets for use on Hutchison 3G’s W-CDMA network in Europe and Asia. NEC also selected ACCESS’ AVE(TM) -SSL encryption modules for the handset deployment.

NTT DoCoMo's FeliCa Mobile Wallet Launch

The Mobile Wallet is nearly in our pockets. In what promises to be just the first ripple in a wave of material promoting FeliCa, Takeshi Natsuno, managing director of DoCoMo’s i-mode Planning Department, today took the covers off the first four FeliCa handsets that will be coming into stores this July. Regular Wireless Watchers will know we have been tracking this story over the last 6 months starting with the trial-launch video program Here.

DoCoMo Debuts 4 New i-mode NFC Handsets

NTT DoCoMo, Inc. and its eight regional subsidiaries today announced the July 2004 launch of the i-mode FeliCa Service for mobile wallet applications, which will be used in combination with the company’s first four NFC enabled i-mode handsets—three 2G mova 506iC series models and the 3G FOMA F900iC handset—which also will be launched in early July.