Japan's only advertising museum, "Ad Museum Tokyo," has reopened after renovation!

The Ad Museum Tokyo ( Shiodome, Tokyo), housing approximately 300,000 advertising materials and works, reopened on December 1st following renovations to mark its 15th anniversary.

Prior to the opening, a ribbon-cutting ceremony was held featuring Koichi Kabayama, Director of the Printing Museum; Akira Ohira, Chairman of the All Japan Advertising Federation; Toshihiro Yamamoto, President of Dentsu Inc.; Ryuichi Mori of the Hideo Yoshida Memorial Foundation; and Toyoko Mori, Director of Ad Museum Tokyo.

Ad Museum Tokyo consists of three main areas: permanent exhibitions, special exhibitions, and a library. The renovation incorporates digital technology throughout, enabling visitors to interactively search for works and materials.

The permanent exhibition hall features three sections: "History of Japanese Advertising," the CM viewing booth "Four Emotions," and the "Collection Table," allowing visitors to engage with diverse advertising materials and works.

The "History of Japanese Advertising" corner presents representative advertisements and related materials from six eras spanning the Edo period to the present. It boasts a rich archive of materials from past and present, East and West, starting with Edo-period handbills—considered the origin of flyers—and extending to new advertising forms created by technologies like VR (Virtual Reality), AR (Augmented Reality), and AI (Artificial Intelligence).

The viewing booths, curated by emotion and titled "Four Feelings," showcase commercials that have moved viewers: "Yeah! (Energizing)," "Love (Heartwarming)," "Humm... (Thought-Provoking)," and "Wow! (Surprising)." The booth design itself was developed to embody these four emotions.

The "Collection Table" presents the museum's advertising works digitally and analogously. The digital collection currently offers access to approximately 2,000 pieces. Selecting an advertising work allows you to view not only that piece but also related series. Keywords are assigned to each work; for example, selecting the keyword "car" lets you browse all car advertisements together.

The collection also displays items like commercial storyboards, which are rarely seen by those outside the advertising industry.

The "Library" houses approximately 28,000 books and materials related to advertising and marketing, along with 50 years' worth of advertising research papers.

It will also host special exhibitions introducing the potential of communication from unique perspectives. The opening exhibition is "The 'Thinking Up' Exhibition." It presents the thought processes behind "coming up with" outstanding ideas—such as hit products and convenient goods—alongside the products themselves. The nine methods for thinking about "coming up with" are: "Try sticking things together," "Try stopping," "Try creating a symbol," "Try breaking things apart," "Try comparing," "Try hiding," "Try swapping," "Try making it dangerous," and "Try adding."