Local mobile advertising still off in the distance

While conventional wisdom holds that location represents the next evolution of mobile advertising, the industry is still some distance away from a truly localized mobile ad model, according to a panel of experts addressing the subject at Tuesday's Mobile Entertainment Live! event in Las Vegas. Even as national brands continue to earmark a growing percentage of their adspend on the mobile channel, there is little momentum behind mobile campaigns targeting specific geographic footprints despite user demand for content like local weather, news and sports. "We haven't seen the local merchant move into mobile," said Clay Kellogg, director of business development for mobile advertising marketplace AdMob. "It's still a big step to get to local merchants leveraging mobile."

Mobile advertising is nevertheless creating a connection between brands and consumers, the panel agreed. Kellogg cited the results of a recent AdMob campaign for the LandRover automobile brand: In addition to 45,000 mobile video downloads and 7400 wallpaper downloads, the mobile effort inspired 1,100 wireless subscribers to contact their local LandRover dealership.  

Also nurturing the growth of mobile advertising: Smartphone penetration. "If you're an advertiser, there's a halo effect that comes with advertising on devices people are in love with," said Cheryl Lucanegro, vice president of advertising with digital music service provider Pandora, specifically nodding to the consumer cachet enjoyed by Apple's iPhone. "The iPhone is the first time that brands started looking at mobile phones differently," agreed T.J. Person, senior vice president of mobile strategy for GMR Marketing.