Today DoCoMo and Japanese broadcaster Nippon Television Network Corporation announced a system to deliver electronic coupons to mobile phones via digital terrestrial broadcast mobile TV.

The preferred mobile TV system in Japan is OneSeg – a form of digital terrestrial broadcast TV. Since it went live in April this year, operators have launched several mobile handsets which can receive the signal. As it’s digital, OneSeg offers the interesting possibility to combine data with the broadcast signal and there have been a few experimental services such as baseball programmes which offer viewers additional statistics on demand. This latest service is the first idea to really push the boundries of what broadcast mobile TV can do - offering coupons you can redeem at retailers direct from your mobile.

The coupons are delivered as Toruca e-coupons. The Toruca system uses the FeliCa contactless IC chip used by wallet phones so consumers can redeem them directly at retailers by holding their phone over an ic reader-writer touchpoint. The interesting point about this new system is that the coupons can be combined with video clips taken from the TV show to offer content-specific marketing. For example, the service provides the possibility of combining a coupon with a clip of a cooking recipe. The coupons can also be forwarded to friends through email or infrared, presenting some interesting viral marketing opportunities. The new system seems like a great opportunity for marketers to produce some integrated marketing campaigns using the mobile and a lucrative way for operators to monetize broadcast digital TV which lies outside of their billing control.

# posted by Jan Kuczynski @ 10:31 am