John Ellery

John Ellery

2016 - Joint Winner of the Lifetime Achievement Award

John joined the OOH industry with London + Provincial Poster Group in 1968. The Group expanded into Australia and New Zealand by purchasing several companies and forming Australian Posters. Mike Snr and Brian Tyquin with their father John were part of this enterprise. John’s Father Roy led this growth, having originally joined the OOH industry in 1929 in Southampton.

John had experience of working in the bill room during school holidays in the early 60’s.  At L+P he trained in all aspects of OOH, and in particular the development of the pedestrian scale sector of the medium. L+P purchased Frank Mason - bus advertising -and John was appointed Marketing Director of Smith and Masons, the JV with WH Smith in 1976. He became a main Board Director of L+P in 1977, also joining the Board of Adshel Ltd, the joint venture bus shelter advertising Company, with More O'Ferrall.  

He was part of the team that brought together the 10 major companies to form British Posters which was a sales platform for the OOH industry in the UK. However the monopolies and Mergers commission had it shut down in September 1981 as it was considered to be price fixing.

In 1981 he joined Dennis Sullivan at specialist Portland Outdoor advertising, 25% owned by WPP. In 1995 he joined Poster Publicity where he developed the International division and opened 18 offices worldwide. Portland and Poster Publicity joined forces in 2004 to become Kinetic, now part of the WPP empire. 

In 2004 he became an OOH consultant and took on a number of consultative roles, including a Global advisory role to AYUDA Systems, and FEPE.

Since 1970 John had been connected with FEPE the European OOH Association, attending their annual events. He was keen to expand it into a Global Association. In 2004 he was invited to become a consultant to FEPE, and encouraged worldwide OOH representatives to join the Board. It became a truly Global association and was renamed The World Out of Home Organization (WOO) in 2019. 

He retired in June 2020.