NTT DOCOMO Inc. and Dentsu Inc. have agreed to establish LIVE BOARD, Inc., a new company engaged in the sales of digital advertising space that will leverage the management resources of both companies, manage Digital-Out-Of-Home distribution platforms and develop advertising media. The new company will be launched in February 2019. Ichiro Jinnai is the new President and CEO.
[1]The press release stated that the objectives behind the establishment of the new company include; leveraging the respective assets and knowhow of DOCOMO, which has marketing data for mobile phones and a variety of services, and Dentsu, Japan’s leader in advertising transactions and performance, the two companies aim to resolve current OOH advertising issues and promulgate and expand DOOH business adding new value including linkage with smartphones by realising the provision of OOH viewing data and automating advertising transactions.
This new business will build and operate an online platform enabling multiple advertisers to purchase space across numerous DOOH media, conducting advertising space sales based on impressions. We are told that this is a first for Japan in the DOOH market. It will also conduct advertising space sales optimised in accordance with targets by utilising population distribution statistic ‘Mobile Spatial Statistics’ data based on DOCOMO mobile phone network operating data and visualising the number of people according to gender, age and other categories for each segment that were in the vicinity of the advertising placement for each day of the week and time slot.
It also aims to develop and provide advertising products with new added value, including interactive linkage between DOOH and smartphones carried by people nearby.
The announcement stats that that via the establishment of this new company, DOCOMO and Dentsu will launch a full-fledged DOOH market in Japan and create the foundation for a new advertising business.