Japan's premier mobile communications company NTT DoCoMo wanted to encourage users to upgrade to newer hardware. They started a service called Deco-mail short for decoration mail for FOMA their 3G mobile communications platform. They wanted to make the best use of Deco-mail to achieve the goal.

The winners who got their original Deco-mail picture, showed it off to their family and friends. Still more, they sent it to their friends via e-mail to express their emotions, resulting in an enormous viral effect. The result was a 140,000 subscriber growth from the previous month. And increase in data packets resulted in an increase in packet bills. From this success, this content will be a regular content form April 2006. And is in under consideration for a national roll out.

We thought it would be most effective to provide the users with something that they can enjoy and feel the richness of 3G communication, and at the same time use Deco-mail itself as the vehicle for viral-marketing. NTTDoCoMo Kyushu kicked off a digital contents giveaway campaign of Deco-mail to encourage users to upgrade to newer hardware through widely spreading the awareness of Deco-mail. The mobile users tend to demand quick response, so the pictures were sent back within 24 hours after the photos were sent in . They got one high quality picture, stress free, virtually in realtime.