The Oculus Rift roller coaster, and other sights from Ad:Tech Tokyo

Ad:Tech Tokyo, one in a series of international advertising conferences, was held from September 16-18. It attracted the usual big names including Yahoo Japan, Twitter, Google, Facebook and a host of SEO-loving advertising experts.

Aside from the heavyweights, there were also a number of young, rising companies eager to meet new clients. Take a look below at some of the companies that stood out during the event.

Yahoo Japan

Yahoo made a splash with an Oculus Rift powered roller coaster for search engine results. Users climb into the pod, strap on the headset, and are transported to a virtual roller coaster. The hills and valleys of the ride reflect the popularity of a given search term.

During the ride, relevant headlines and images also pop up to make the experience more immersive. The ride attracted a long line and of interested conference goers but project leader Takeshi Nasu told Tech in Asia there are no immediate plans to go into mass production.

“Last year we did a 3-D printer that let you “feel” search results. This year is the second step,” Nasu said. When asked what next year would bring, he burst out laughing and admitted “I have no idea.”

Hitting a steep drop while looking at search results for Japanese tennis star “Kei Nishikori.”

Adfurikun

Only a year old, this SSP (supply side provider) for smartphone apps needing ads has already attracted outsized attention. It is a branch of advertising firm Terajima Joho Kikaku, a company that stretches back to 1988. Aside from its parent company’s repute, Adfurikun credits its success to being a first mover.

“When we started there were not many companies focusing on smartphone apps. They were on big web,” said sales manager Takashi Komuro. The team is only ten strong but is already looking to go overseas, currently studying ad networks and publishers. Its clients include Mixi and Bandai Namco.

Adfurikun also won the unofficial “Best Use of Plushies in an Exhibit Award.” Its mascot was originally an emoji character from the company’s content business. To keep branding somewhat consistent “Furi-furi kun” became the titular mascot of Adfurikun.

The cutest giveaways of the conference.

Antenna

Developers of news apps were determined to take advantage of the event and capture industry attention. Gunosy, currently the leader of the new guard with five million downloads had a giant display, but Antenna also made its presence known with a well attended exhibit.

Antenna is typically seen as the third player in the mobile news battlefield, behind Gunosy and SmartNews. Like those two, Antenna is a news curation app.

Antenna’s appearance at the conference was also notable for its emphasis on native advertising (articles that appear in media publications but are produced by a third-party for promotional purposes). As the news app war heats up, expect prices on native ads to rise as well.

Antenna hired popular celebrity Lola to advertise the service.

Home360

Going back to Oculus Rift, outside of the main exhibition hall there were several vendors showing how OR could be used in advertising. One company, Home360, specializes in making ads viewable on OR and the sort of event-driven OR experiences that Yahoo Japan was using on the other side of the event floor.

The niche business has found some early fans. Red Bull, NHK, and Nintendo are all clients.

Company designer Murakami told Tech in Asia that he is not content to just produce content, he wants to get into hardware as well. Within the next month he will begin selling a device that slips onto a smartphone and can create a miniature virtual reality experience.

Oculus Rift next to the smartphone prototype.

Graphy

Graphy is a side project from a Twitter media planner Arglye. Founder and CEO Junji Okayasu explained that it is a business he’s wanted to create for five years but needed to build the other business first in order to realize his dream.

Graphy is a social network where users have to opt-out of connections. After filling in a profile, users are automatically matched up with other users who share their interests. Right now, categories are limited to movies, anime, music, and food but Okayasu expects that to change as the service moves out of beta and more users start inputting their preferences.

His purpose for making the new social network is to give die-hard fans like himself a place where they can talk about their favorite subjects aware from the glare of Facebook. “If I talk about anime on Facebook and investors see it, that might be a bit difficult,” he said.

A new social network for die-hard fans.

See: Adtech firms want to open up Asia’s advertising black box