Last week DoubleClick, one of the world's leading ad technology firms, revealed it was planning to integrate mobile ad serving into DART, its online ad serving technology (NMA 01.03.07). It said publishers and advertisers are keen to utilise emerging opportunities in the fledgling mobile ad space, but that a platform combining online and mobile ad serving was required to drive the market on.
Currently, mobile ad serving is treated as a separate channel to online ad serving, meaning that publishers and advertisers have to work with numerous third parties. But now that DoubleClick intends to integrate mobile with its traditional online platform, the company hopes to make the process more straightforward.

"Customers are starting to demand it," Jeannie Gammon, DoubleClick's UK country director, told NMA. "They are starting to look for the next step, so we have to be in this space."

But the DoubleClick move is part of what appears to be a much bigger trend within mobile at the moment. Mobile has long been touted as the holy grail for advertisers, providing the ability to generate highly targeted campaigns to potential consumers they know are interested in what they have to say. However, many obstacles have stood in the way, not least the handset technology itself.

This appeared to change in 2006, however, as 3G really began to take off. Handsets were finally starting to provide advertisers and publishers with the technology, both for downloads and online access, to extend their reach onto mobile.

The online players were starting to see that mobile was no longer off-limits and, if last month's 3GSM conference in Barcelona was anything to go by - DoubleClick, Adviva, Valueclick, Yahoo!, Google and MySpace were among the attendees - the platform is now very much part of the picture.

"We've looked at mobile regularly over the past few years and certainly we understand how important this channel is going to be in the future," says Phil Coote, COO of online ad network Adviva. "There has definitely been an increase in traditional web companies attending events like 3GSM as people begin to see what they can do in this space now, as opposed to a year or two down the line.

"Ari Paparo, VP of rich media for DoubleClick worldwide, agrees, saying that the barriers to advertising on mobile are starting to come down, so the time is right for the company to put together an integrated platform.

"It's true that advertising on mobile is lacking in some respects, but it's moving in the right direction very rapidly," he says. "So getting in the game is very important, both for our clients and ourselves."

DoubleClick looked at the market and decided that it isn't an ROI story at the moment. "No one's going to make a lot of money over the next 12 months in mobile advertising," says Paparo. "But it is a very important strategic position to be in, in terms of speaking to customers, advertisers and clients, and learning what works. So as it moves up the steep demand curve to rapid adoption, we'll be ready to go. There have been quite a few examples of successful mobile ad campaigns and offline moving into mobile, so it definitely deserves a place in the marketing mix.

Scott Ferris, senior VP and general manager of DoubleClick's competitor Atlas On Demand, says that although employing a digital strategy for channels other than the web is prudent, his company's focus on mobile is currently not as strong as on other areas. "We've invested a lot of time in the interactive TV space, for example, as it's a sizeable, existing medium," he says. "Mobile is in our development path, but a lower priority.

"One of the current challenges of the mobile market surrounds the fact that for any third-party technology company to get involved in the space, it has to deal with the issues surrounding the multiplicity of handsets, formats, screen sizes and so on, all of which affect the effectiveness of display ads on mobile.

" James Booth, CEO of ad technology specialist Tangozebra, bought by DoubleClick last week, says his parent company's move doesn't surprise him, but that for Tangozebra there are other areas to focus on before mobile.

"We've been looking at mobile for a long time and regularly talk about it. But the reality at the moment is that the pull is coming from next-generation IPTV and podcasting," he says.

But another DoubleClick competitor, Bluestreak, says it too will be integrating mobile and online ad serving technologies in 2007, although it's wary that it's not necessarily the technology that's holding the space back.

"We're very interested in the mobile space and are likely to be doing something similar this year, although we'll face the same challenges as DoubleClick and Tangozebra," says Dax Hamman, international operations manager at Bluestreak. "The main thing is that we're waiting for the customer, and the agencies we're working with aren't pushing as hard into the mobile space as DoubleClick would like to think."

Mike Peralta, UK MD of online ad giant Advertising.com, believes that the tough nut of mobile is about to be cracked, and that those in the position to utilise it will be the ones to profit.

"It's often about being in the right place at the right time," he says. "Look at MySpace last year, compared to Geocities before that: it took off simply because the time was right. The same can be said for mobile: it will happen, so online companies should have it high on their agenda now.

" Although DoubleClick has said that an integrated DART platform is unlikely to launch until the end of the year, the news shows publishers and advertisers how seriously mobile is being taken. Whatever the reaction, the company is certainly one of the first to the starting blocks.

Despite their small size and graphical limitations, mobile banner ads have quickly been booked up by brands since mobile operators began to introduce the format last year. Orange led the move into mobile banner advertising with trials last May, partnering with mobile ad network ScreenTonic to deliver campaigns for Jaguar in July.

Promotions have subsequently run on the Orange portal from clients including Jaguar, Peugeot and BMW. Other brands to have taken advantage of ScreenTonic’s mobile ad solution include Cadbury, Microsoft, Reebok, EMI, Reuters, Universal International Pictures, Apple and Procter & Gamble. Most recently, ScreenTonic has agreed a deal with 20th Century Fox to promote the DVD release of Borat.

The operator portals are vital to advertisers as they still generate the largest amount of traffic. However, companies like mobile ad network AdMob are providing opportunities to run banners off-portal. It sees the greatest demand from content vendors like Jamba that can directly monetise click-throughs and easily calculate an ROI.

Mobile operator O2 and hardware manufacturer Samsung are other high-profile brands to have advertised their services off-portal, on the ITV and Ministry of Sound mobile portals (NMA 01.03.07). Organised by mobile ad agency 4th Screen, the brands join a roster of advertisers that includes mobile content vendor Probability Group.

Alex Farber