On the concluding day of the World Out of Home Organization (WOO) Toronto Congress, the global OOH body announced that the next World Congress will be held in Lisbon, Portugal during June 7-9, 2023.
The Toronto Congress featured indepth discussions on wide ranging areas, such as, programmatic, what clients want from OOH (both sessions moderated by Brendon Cook), the changing macro-media landscape where ecommerce increasingly rules, the increasingly critical topics of sustainability (from WFA Global Head of Marketing Services Rob Dreblow), diversity and the way digital OOH amplifies social media in real time to great effect.
A WOO release cites that the seismic changes in the post-Covid media world were analysed in depth by Christian Von den Brinken Strategy and Innovation lead at Ströer and PHD's Rohan Tambyrajah with Talon's Adrian Skelton.
The leaders of the US 'Big Three' Jeremy Male of OUTFRONT Media (alongside 'Kappy’ Kaplan of Kinetic) and Clear Channel's Scott Wells joined Lamar's Sean Reilly at Congress while Anna Bager of the US OAAA described the valuable work of national associations and the work, they were doing under WOO's aegis in helping recovery from the pandemic and readying OOH for the future.
“There were two uplifting presentations from Dentsu International: a Keynote from Head of Gobal Solutions and Innovation Jeff Greenspoon on the macro-economic picture and Head of Amplfi Global Ben Milne on what media agency planners really want from OOH. Ocean CEO Tim Bleakley gave a rousing call to action on the true value of Out of Home,’ the release notes.
In a major industry development Gideon Adey and Neil Eddleston outlined a new set of best practice guidelines for the industry - 'realising the value of DOOH audience measurement' - a long-awaited and necessary template for a new digital-dominated world.
WOO members in Ukraine joined delegates with an inspiring video, taking valuable time out to show solidarity with their industry in the midst of the conflict in their tragically war-ravaged country.
“One of the main tasks of such global meetings is sharing knowledge and information and Toronto 2022 succeeded triumphantly in this, evidenced by the number of hard-worked phone cameras as delegates devoured the slides and videos generously offered by speakers.
“But the overriding impression was the relief and shared emotion among speakers and delegates that the industry was finally able to reconvene and meet in person after three gruelling and arduous years dominated by the pandemic,” the release states.