Nokia launches ad alliance

Nokia today launched the Nokia Advertising Alliance, a consortium of mobile ad companies and brand advertisers interested in expanding their reach on the mobile handset. Member companies will work with Nokia to branch into couponing, location-based targeting, image recognition and other emerging ad technologies on the Nokia Media Network, which includes more than 100 blue-chip mobile publishers, operator partners and Nokia properties.

Companies certified as members of the Alliance at launch include i-movo, Mobile Acuity, Mobiqa and uLocate and brand advertisers from the automotive and entertainment industries. Through the integration of the Alliance and Nokia’s Media Network, brands can plan, execute and measure mobile ad campaigns on the Nokia interface.

Nokia launched the alliance in conjunction with the Mobile Marketing Forum, taking place this week in New York. Hosted by the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA), the global Forum convenes to discuss the latest trends and developments in mobile marketing. This year in particular, while the mobile ad industry has seen some tempering, the atmosphere at the conference was still largely excited and bullish, according to attendee Tim Solt, senior vice president of sales at Go2Media, which works with Nokia on mobile ads, but is not yet a member of the Alliance.

“We’ve crossed over the line with regards to everything being viewed on the same level,” Solt said. “There are truly different levels of value as it relates to mobile inventory and associated performance with it. That is good news that maybe we’ll finally start moving away from trying to force all these square pegs into round holes and compare them when there a lot of points of differentiation between content sites and campaigns around them.”

Mobile advertising has long been considered a ripe moneymaker for carriers, but the market growth has been stymied by concerns around privacy, consumer acceptance and a reluctance to crowd the already small mobile screen with intrusive advertisements. According to a Gartner report issued earlier this year, worldwide mobile advertising is projected to surpass $2.7 billion in 2008, up from $1.7 billion in 2007. By the end of 2011, this number is expected to grow to $12.8 billion. To capitalize on the opportunity, mobile-ad centric companies are increasingly branching out from SMS and WAP ads to more innovative and personalized approaches.

At the Forum, Go2Media launched animated WAP banner ads throughout its mobile content network. The banners include a series of images and text running on a 10-to-15-second loop optimized to run across partner carriers and devices. The company, which handles the entire development process in-house, first added the animated-banner option to its portfolio of ad methods at the beginning of the year. Since then, they have been incorporated into the mobile advertising campaigns of companies like Best Buy and also the U.S. Navy.

“In the WAP space, I’m continuing to hear more from top agencies and brands that they are always looking for uniqueness, points of differentiation, different ways to engage consumers,” Solt said. “Whether we’re doing things like the roll-out of the animated units or more from a creative hook with the mobile consumers, things like sweepstakes are integrated into the overarching goal of the program for advertisers.”

Taking it one step further to let consumers control the ads they see, ad-funded mobile social network itsmy.com announced today that its members can personalize which advertising channels -- such as fashion, sports, entertainment or education -- are displayed on their social network. Itsmy.com members pick from 15 advertising channels with the goal of making ads more relevant for them and the consumer demographic more relevant for the advertiser.

Trials in the United States and the UK found that out of 20,000 users, 82% made their personal ad choice and about 40% changed these targets a few times in the first week to see which ads they would get. The campaigns, handled by Gofresh’s mobile social ad network, showed average results of more than 3% click-through rate.