Tokyo Trains Try Out NFC Advertising

Shunkosha currently has FeliCa NFC-enabled straps installed on the Ginza and Marunouchi train lines for a trial period which started yesterday, and will extend to June 3rd. Users simply need to touch their phone and obtain the embedded URL for the website being promoted by the ad campaign. For now, the travel agency HIS will be the advertiser in this initial phase.

It looks to be a process marginally easier than scanning a QR code, although I wonder how many people will actually use it after the novelty has worn off.

I still think that gaming might be a better way to advertise to people than by sending them to a URL. Perhaps some kind of real-life card collection game, where you can only obtain certain cards in specific locations as with the Japanese location-based game Colopl.

That would certainly be something I’d like to see the Japanese Tourism Agency get behind, for domestic tourists as well as those from overseas, especially Korea and China.

[Source here]

Microsoft Announces Pixel Media as Exclusive Ad Agency for Skype in Hong Kong

Microsoft announced today that Pixel Media will be the exclusive advertising representative for Skype in Hong Kong.

 

Skype will now be available as an advertising option for online and mobile advertising, and advertisers will also be able to reach other Microsoft properties, says Leslie Chu, the company’s general manager of advertising in Hong Kong and Taiwan:

We’re excited that advertisers in Hong Kong can now be part of the Skype experience. By including Skype into MSN, Windows Live Messenger and Hotmail, we are able to offer advertisers unparalleled reach across very intimate and unique communication platforms.

Pixel Media’s CEO Kevin Huang noted that his company is pleased to have been selected by Microsoft, pointing out the importance of a platform like Skype in the digital advertising landscape in the region. In addition to Hong Kong, we’re told that in the Asia region, advertising is available on Skype in Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan, and Japan.

Indeed it was just last year we when saw Japanese advertising agency Dentsu sign a deal to beSkype’s exclusive advertiser in Japan, that particular agreement focusing on display ads in the “Skype Home area,” for Windows only. This partnership with Pixel Media, we are informed this afternoon, is also for the Windows platform only.

The announcement also notes that the destination resort Galaxy Macau is the first advertiser to get on board.

[Source here]