MMA to set mobile TV advertising standards

Though the mobile TV sector is still a small one, the Mobile Marketing Association is preparing for its growth and the advertising and marketing campaigns that will accompany it. Today it announced it is forming a video and television committee tasked with developing an industry-wide consensus on operational and technical guidelines for mobile advertising as well as create a list of best practices for the mobile TV ads of the future.

MMA Executive Director Laura Marriott said that the committee, chaired by CBS Digital Media vice president of wireless Cyriac Roeding and MobiTV vice president of advertising Jack Hallahan, will develop standards for pre-and post-roll video—video ads that appear before an after a mobile TV show—develop standards for measuring that advertising’s impact and define standards for ad rights among the marketing and advertising agencies.

What the eventually form of the mobile TV advertisement will be, however, Marriott couldn’t say. “We’re still in the pre-early days,” she said. “We’re just kicking this committee off, and that’s what it will eventually determine.”

She added that MMA believes mobile TV has enormous potential for advertising and marketing—that’s why the MMA is getting involved in the process so early. Standards have to be in place before the first mobile ads start running to avoid any possibility of any initial bad campaigns poisoning the format in its infancy, she said.