Europe : Sony Ericsson, IRIS Nation and Netherlands-based mobile entertainment and solutions provider Mowave have teamed up to create comprehensive mobile sites available on operator portals in 16 countries around the world. The sites, which promote Sony Ericsson's new K800i handset, offer images, video and other content featuring Brazilian football superstar Ronaldinho.

The K800i ( see left ) is a feature-rich 3G phone and boasts a Cyber-shot 3.2 megapixel digital camera. The camera is equipped with autofocus, an image stabilizer and built-in Xenon flash. The handset also has music and video playback capability and supports the Memory Stick Micro™ (M2).

The destination sites include a slate of features showcasing the capabilities of the handset, such as short video tutorials on football skills conducted by Ronaldinho, a Ronaldinho diary, video ringers, wallpapers, animations and customer interaction. All of the content is free to download but users must have the K800i to access all the features of the sites.

"A large percentage of mobile phone users begin their exploration of mobile video, and other rich media content, via the operator portals so that is an ideal place to show off the capabilities of this incredible phone," said Giles Richter, CEO of Mowave.

"Sony Ericsson and IRIS provided a great concept and that, combined with our existing operator integrations, made it compelling for operators to place the promotional content prominently on their portals," he said.

The K800i promotional site is currently available in 11 languages in the following countries: Austria, Australia, Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Germany, Finland, The Netherlands, Norway, Romania, South Africa, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom.

Stephan Croix, Global Marketing Director - Vodafone Customer Unit at Sony Ericsson, said that the company has always worked very closely with network operators to ensure that its handsets make optimal use of and work seamlessly with their networks.

"The 3G and multimedia capabilities of the K800i make it the perfect handset to take advantage of the new high-speed networks that have been put in place around the world," he said.

"We take great pleasure in offering this exclusive Ronaldinho content because we're confident that once users experience just how good everything looks and sounds on the phone, and how fast they can get the content; they will understand that we have really entered a new era of personal entertainment, ushered in by handsets such as the K800i," he added.

Gareth Rowe, Senior Account Director at IRIS added further comment on the operator portal approach of this campaign.

"It really speaks to the maturation of the mobile content experience," he said.

"The discovery of the content happens completely within the phone environment, with users browsing the operator portals rather than being alerted to the content via traditional media."

"Mobile media is rapidly becoming a sophisticated stand-alone channel where users are empowered to seek out the content that is most compelling to them."

"The challenge for media companies and marketers is clear: create great content that optimizes the capabilities of mobile handsets and users will come," he added.

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