Tom Goddard, World Out Of Home Organization (WOO)

The 16:9 PODCAST IS SPONSORED BY SCREENFEED – DIGITAL SIGNAGE CONTENT The World Out Of Home Organization has been around for decades, but under a French acronym that didn't mean a lot to much of the world. The non-profit changed its name from FEPE International to its new handle a few years ago, and has never looked back. It now has members from all over the globe - with outdoor advertising companies of all sizes and stripes signing on to benefit from lobbying, networking, policy discussions, standardization, research and education. The organization also does a heavily attended global conference each year, as well as at least a couple of regional versions in APAC and the Middle East. I had a great chat with out of home media veteran Tom Goddard, a London-based Irishman who gives his time and experience as the organization's President and Executive Chairman. Subscribe to this podcast: iTunes * Google Play * RSS TRANSCRIPT Tom, thank you for joining me. Where are you today?  Tom Goddard: Yeah, nice to be here, David. I'm in sunny London. We're having a Mediterranean type of summer, which is a hit and miss here, but we're having a lovely summer at the moment and I'm right in Hyde Park, so I'm looking into the park and all the joggers. So it's a lovely spot, it's about 28 degrees, so pretty cool.  Hopefully you have air conditioning!  Tom Goddard: Yeah, but I hate using it. I've had to use it a bit lately, but yes, I do.  So you are the head of the World Out of Home Organization? Can you give me the background on yourself and what that organization is all about? Tom Goddard: Yeah, of course, David. For my sins, I'm President of the World Out of Home Organization, it's an honorary reposition and the World Out of Home Organization is a not-for-profit body and its purpose is the same now as it was when it was set up 63 years ago. It's really to drive sector growth.  When the organization was set up in 1959 by Jacques Dauphin who was one of the pioneers of French outdoor media alongside JCDecaux, it was originally called FEPE which is short in French for  Federation European Publicite Exterieur, and in later years, it expanded outside that footprint and became a truly global organization. So in 2018, we decided to rebrand as the World Out of Home Organization, which we launched the following year at our Dubai Congress, which happened just before the pandemic, and so we're now the World Out of Home Organization, but we are 63 years old.  Yeah, I have known a few people who would make reference to FEPE all the time, like Sheldon Silverman when I was in meetings with him, and I didn't know what he was going on about, but when the name was changed, I was like, “Oh, now I get it!” It’s a more universal name. Tom Goddard: Yeah. It's very plain and it says what it does.  With regards to your background, are you a media owner guy or an agency guy or something else? Tom Goddard: Yeah, I'm a media owner guy. I come from the media owner side and I've had a long career on the media owner side, all the way from a small company started in Ireland to running the International division of CBS Outdoors, as it was then called. More recently I was the chairman of Ocean Outdoor in the UK, which is one of the leading digital out-of-home companies in the premium sector. Are you still active, or are you still working?  Tom Goddard: Yeah, I'm still pretty active. I just stepped down from Ocean, just about a year and a half ago, but but I have also got a business called, Out of Home Capital, which I've set up with with eight other very experienced out-of-home professionals, and it's a global advisory business that helps all sectors of the out-of-home ecosystem to achieve their strategic plans. So I'm busy with that alongside my active work in the World Out of Home Organization.  Out of Home Capital, is that also a funding entity or purely advisory? Tom Goddard: It's mainly advisory, but we do have access to capital sources, and we do advise, for e