Three areas to watch in Japan's online space in 2017

Major developments in online advertising in Japan in 2016 were the local launches of AbemaTV, Spotify, and Radiko. It was a promising year for the future of video advertising, with Japan's outstream video market starting to emerge. It is in light of such advances that I would like to highlight three areas that should attract attention in 2017.
 
1.  Viewability and ad quality
The debate about viewability and ad quality should intensify in the year ahead. The launches of video ads and the emergence of voice ad are enriching content. There should be more campaigns that look to secure recognition or change attitudes. This will necessitate campaign planning that focuses more on viewability and ad quality.

2. Omnichannel marketing
There will likely be a growing need for a setup to comprehensively plan and measure effectiveness. This would represent a departure from separately planning video ads for AbemaTV or TVer, voice ads for Spotify or Radiko, or existing display ads separately and separately verifying effectiveness through an approach centered on click conversions.

3. Cross-device data
A few data vendors plan to fully enter the Japanese market in the fiscal year starting in April. In Japan, Google is the only campaign analysis provider using cross-device data. But as more vendors penetrate the market, we should see more demand-side platforms deploy data. Cross-device data should aid in implementing and measuring the effectiveness of omnichannel campaigns and encourage people to focus away from click conversion-heavy campaign planning and effectiveness measurement.

Tetsuya Shintani is the commercial director and country manager of Japan at The Trade Desk.