Ad Museum Tokyo — Attraction in Tokyo

I've been traveling to Japan for almost 20 years, so it was very surprising to me that I had never heard about this museum. It's a free entry museum, but you still need to make reservations ahead of time ( i was there a year ago, so it might have changed since then)

The museum is amazing, full of exhibitions and information. There is English information as well as in Japanese. I really enjoyed looking at the different posters, matchs overs, magazines, and so on. They also exhibit a collection of tv commericals, both modern and old times.

On the second floor of the museum there is a library full of books about graphic design, product design and so on. Most of them are in Japanese, but I was able to find "The Design of Everyday Things" and read it there for a few hours (heads up, you are not allowed to drink or eat there, but you are allowd to work there with a laptop)

Anyway, overall recommended museum to go if you are looking to see the branding and advertising...

I was looking for an interesting place to spend time at in Tokyo, seeing that the following day was forecasted be a rainy one. Thanks to Google Review, I learnt about this museum, and was interested to visit despite having no background or particular interest in ads.

It was a very cold day, I almost changed my mind half way there from Shimbashi Station (not knowing that there was an underground access all the way through! which I gratefully took on the way back to the station).

Glad that I did not, I spent hours in this (free of charge) amazing place learning about the history of advertisement in Japan in the most interactively educative way. I devoured (untypical of me) eras after eras of development.

Go there if you are looking for options, or are an ads enthusiast. It is a bit secluded inside the building, but persevere and you'll find it. You might think it is...

If you’re a marketing nerd like me then you must clear a few hours of your itinerary for this on-of-a-kind ad museum.

I booked the English guided tour through the website in advance (a must), and received an EXCELLENT tour from Manome-san. Not only was her English impeccable but her subject knowledge and preparedness for the tour wowed me. Usually free tours are a case of ‘you get what you pay for’ but her tour was anything but.

Unless your Japanese is amazing (unlike mine), you’d probably end up lost without the guided tour as many of the hidden gems are deep within the detail that one would otherwise miss.

You’ll discover the origins of advertising innovation dating back to the 17th century including the popularisation of media and messaging strategy used to this day.

I highly recommend adding carving out a couple of hours...