Tokyo hosts first-ever OOH industry conference

TOKYO, Today: At the inaugural OOH Tokyo Conference, organised by the Japanese OOH industry and the World Out of Home Organisation (WOO), Goddard delivered key insights.

The event marked WOO’s first ever involvement in Japan, drawing over 450 attendees to Tokyo Midtown Hall.

Goddard praised Japan for its significant contribution to global OOH revenues—6%, despite having just 1.5% of the world’s population. Yet, he noted a decline in the OOH industry’s market share by 1.7% since 2020.

“So, what has caused this?” he questioned. “To me it’s down to two primary issues; market fragmentation and poor collaboration.”

He emphasised the dual role of competition and alliance within the industry, “You must realise, you are both competitors AND allies at the same time, on the one hand competing fiercely at a local level, but at sector level keeping in mind that advertisers in Japan spend only 6% of their total media budget in OOH, so what about the remaining 94% that goes into other media? Shouldn’t the OOH sector be working much harder as allies, competing for a larger share of that?”

“It’s a proven fact that 1% of sector growth contributes 5 times more to your bottom line than local growth.”

Goddard advocated for unity under a trade association to foster collaboration at a higher level. He also proposed several strategies to boost the OOH sector:

• Digitise more inventory (Japan is at half the global average)
• Co-ordinate AdTech and Data generation strategies
• Build an industry-based Sustainability Roadmap
• Retail and AI – make sure you benefit from these two new opportunities
• Reinforce OOH’s role in supplying municipalities with Civic Amenities
• Highlight OOH’s cost effectiveness more
• And keep nurturing the creative community to allow it to continue to WOW

He concluded with optimism about overcoming challenges and seizing opportunities in the Japanese market with strong leadership and determination. For more information, contact Richard Saturely at richard@worldooh.org