DDX Asia

WOO President Tom Goddard calls for greater collaboration in the Japanese OOH industry

The one-day conference, attracting over 450 delegates, was held at Tokyo Midtown Hall and was the first event WOO has been involved with in Japan in its 60 plus years of existence.

Published

February 26, 2025

M4G Bureau

Tom Goddard was speaking at the first ever OOH Tokyo Conference, organized by representatives of the Japanese OOH industry, in association with the World Out of Home Organisation (WOO).

The one-day conference, attracting over 450 delegates, was held at Tokyo Midtown Hall and was the first event WOO has been involved with in Japan in its 60 plus years of existence.

Tom congratulated Japan on generating 6% of global OOH revenues despite accounting for only 1.5 percent of the world’s population. However, he pointed out that the OOH Industry has not recovered in volume terms to its pre pandemic level of 2020 and has in fact declined by 1.7% share of ADEX since then.

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

“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.”

Tom suggested that the best way for the industry to collaborate was under a unified and well-managed trade association flag, which enables media owners to collaborate at a higher level.

He also highlighted other measures to reverse OOH’s decline

Digitise more inventory (Japan is at half the global average)
Coordinate 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 saying that although the Japanese Market faces formidable challenges, the opportunities are considerable and realisable, with strong leadership and determination.