That was one of the main conclusions of a panel discussion about mobile advertising on the second day (February 12) of the Mobile World Congress 2008 in Barcelona.

The panel's five members represented some of the actors that make up the mobile marketing ecosystem: telecom operators, internet companies, media agencies, and mobile advertising solution providers.

The panel was in agreement that the mobile advertising channel has grown during the last year due to a number of factors. For example, new handsets are providing better user experiences in the wake of the iPhone. Flat rate pricing for mobile broadband and increasingly wide HSPA coverage have also significantly driven up the use of mobile broadband.

However, several panel members called for a widening of the industry's focus to include not only technological solutions, but also the needs of advertising customers - those who spend money on advertisements - and their target audiences - that is, the consumers.

“As an industry we talk about speeds and feeds, but advertisers buy audiences, and they buy them on scale,” Gary Roshak, from Yahoo, said. “What the industry is trying to sell is that mythical one-to-one conversation between the advertiser and the consumer. But advertisers want to reach a big audience. They buy these conversations on scale.”

Iain Jacob, from the media agency Starcom MediaVest Group, urged the mobile marketing industry to “start to breathe the air beyond its shores, the air of advertising customers and consumers”, and added that much mobile advertisement looked like “it was created by technologists.”

Several panel members stressed the need for standardized metrics to measure the impact of different mobile advertising campaigns. Such metrics could benefit both advertising customers - who could make informed decisions about how to spend their advertising budget - and the mobile advertising industry itself, which will gain knowledge about consumers and their reactions to mobile marketing.

“Mobile metrics and proof points are being addressed,” Richard Saggers, from Vodafone Group, said. “The GSM Association is starting to define independent cross-operator metrics that can be used by media and operator communities. All five major operators in the UK are involved in this initiative.

“If we succeed in this, mobile will become a channel of choice and we will get much more of that total advertising spend.”

ABOUT THE SEMINAR

Mobile Advertising session at Mobile World Congress - Creating the Mobile Ad Break, February 12.

Moderator: Laura Marriott, President of the Mobile of the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA).

Panel members:

• Iain Jacob, chief executive officer for Europe, Middle East and Africa, Starcom MediaVest Group
• Gary Roshak, vice president, Mobile Advertisers and Publishers, Yahoo
• Richard Saggers, head of Mobile Advertising at Vodafone Group.
• Ujjal Kohli, chief executive officer, Rhythm NewMedia.
• Alexandre Mars, founder of Phonevalley