Mobile Ad Budgets Increase

Several big brands are earmarking portions of next year’s advertising budgets for mobile marketing.

by Kristina Knight

According to AdAge, marketers like P&G – which won the Mobile Marketing Association’s first Overall Excellence Award – and Microsoft are setting aside more cash for the mobile market in 2007. Procter & Gamble has developed and Ad Lab in which executives for several brands are taught mobile video, text messaging and other mobile marketing basics.

With the addition to new behavioral targeting platforms for mobile marketers and the fact that research shows mobile users are not opposed to simple, non-invasive ad messages on their phones, the mobile market is expected to expand rapidly. However, some privacy advocates are not happy with the new targeting platforms. They would like to see increased adherence to maintaining private, personal information.

Mobile marketers are already asking for better measuring metrix. They also want to be able to buy advertising “across the board”, the ability to purchase ads from different mobile providers and carriers at the same time could help the market increase even faster than its current rates.

A new JupiterResearch study says 22% of companies advertising online are also participating in mobile marketing. The research predicts the mobile ad spend will jump from $1.4 billion in 2006 to $2.9 billion in 2011.