You can often find him/it sitting outside of a shop, along with his co-workers who announce the latest sales and releases. Cute enough for children of all ages can recognize him but not so obnoxious that adults wouldn’t love him too.
DoCoMo Dake has been the mascot of mobile phone company NTT DoCoMo for the past few years. His popularity has grown, along with his fungus family too. Not only has NTT created a site , they have expanded with a whole range of products both mobile and NON-mobile related too.
DoCoMo is known for offering cheap rates for whole families that sign up. They were one of the first companies to offer an “older” persons phone which, featured larger buttons with arrows and instructions of were to push written right on the phone. They were also one of the first to release a child’s mobile with basic calling features and with the “imadoco?” (Japanese: Where are you?) GPS tracking feature allows parents to locate their children.
The funny thing is, DoCoMo Dake is really only used when talking about family plans, never for commercials or ads where they release a new phone or feature (In this ad featured at the end) The mascot is mainly used as a icon, creating a “family identity” for them. It may sound odd but I feel the consumer can easily relate to the mushrooms, and pick out one that is themself, and another member. I always thought my Gram looked like the one with the purple cap, but maybe we just have bad genes?
Which DoCoMo Dake are you?
Well, this post could obviously only had come by someone who also lived in Japan!
For me, more mesmerizing – for those who are still strangers to that country, that is – than the fact that they not only decide but manage to turn a fungus into a huge emo-marketing relational tool for a major telecom company, or even that they still go on a night out on the town to bang the drums to the rythm of the theme song of a cartoon hero made out of bean jam, that is over 50 years old – remember Ampaman? – is the fact that, eventhough they’re already pushing towards the 4th and 5th generation keitais – whereas Apple’s iPhone lags behind as a 2.5G – the Japanese still manage to keep their mobiles design savvy, fun, usable and totally pimped out with every marketeers and techie guy’s dream functions, such as the ever so usefull PM or CL codes.(3D or QR codes – if you have no idea what these are I suggest you check it out at symblogogy.blogspot.com)
Four years after the Japanese have been turning pre-digital era adverts into something live and connected by simply pointing their phone at one of such codes and snapping a photo, these have finally hit Europe – or well…the Uk. Let’s see how it goes! Can’t wait to once again stumble upon people on the street checking out if they want to buy the latest album release by dowloading a 20sec preview directly from the outdoor passively hovering over the closest bus stop, a box of cookies or magazine page and going “look mum, no IP needed!”.