TORONTO, ONTARIO -- What do the Toronto Blue Jays baseball club, Royal Bank of Canada and the digital out-of-home firm Outdoor Broadcast Network have in common? Believing in integrated mobile marketing campaigns.

Executives from these companies and mobile applications specialist Polar Mobile were at hand yesterday at Marketing magazine's halfday "Mobile Marketing 2.0" event in Toronto. Gary Schwartz, president/CEO of Toronto mobile marketing firm Impact Mobile, moderated the lively session on integrating mobile with multichannel campaigns.

"Mobile is important, but more importantly, it's about using mobile more effectively," Mr. Schwartz told the 300 agency, brand and publishing executives in the audience at the Park Hyatt Toronto.

"Follow the consumer -- how do you engage, what are the media touch points, where do you want to move the customer -- it has to be about the mobile customer, not about mobile," he said.

Mobile is taken seriously at RBC. The bank has its own mobile site at http://rbc.mobi that lets customers do the usual -- check balances, transfer money and other transactions that don't require too much heavy lifting.

Avi Pollock, head of applied innovation at RBC, Toronto, said his bank is learning by trial and testing against what competitors are doing.

"We're not waiting for the perfect to be released," Mr. Pollock said.

In addition to the mobile site, RBC is running campaigns to encourage customers to text and find local branches.

The bank most recently ran a competition for university students that was mobile-related and also included QR codes on posters. It is already offering ATMs and branch-finders on GPS devices and is now looking at apps.

"Banking's always going to be multichannel," Mr. Pollock said.

For the Toronto Blue Jays, mobile is all about database-building and marketing. The baseball franchise uses the trusty old warhorse of mobile, SMS, to connect with its fans.

The team plays almost daily, so a mobile alerts program suits it just fine as it continues to add more consumers to its database.

"[Mobile] gives us the opportunity to speak to the customer base on a regular basis," said Rob Jack, manager of promotions at the Blue Jays.

"You start with a short code," he said.

The Blue Jays is also using SMS to offer prizes to fans at the stadium as they sit through games.

"Sometimes we're giving a bucket of chicken -- hey, everyone wants something for free," Mr. Jack said.

"Eventually, we'll see the ticket on the phone," he said.

Polar Mobile founder/CEO Kunal Gupta is working with clients such as Time Inc.'s Time and Sports Illustrated magazines, as well as Canadian Business, Hockey News and event host Marketing magazine to create mobile apps with advertising capability.

These downloadable apps are designed to create a sticky user experience, according to Mr. Gupta, easily the youngest panelist at the show.

"Pushing the app gets the user to go back eight to 10 times a day," Mr. Gupta said.

The Toronto-based executive claims to see a 6:1 ratio in terms of consumer engagement over an app versus a mobile site.

Dora Alexander, vice president of advertising sales at Outdoor Broadcast Network, was using mobile to give legs to digital out-of-home signage.

"Using digital boards, we're linking to SMS," Ms. Alexander said. "That's a direction where digital out-of-home is heading. Pushing but pulling as well."

Ms. Alexander's company included SMS calls to action for a client around Christmas time, encouraging passersby to opt in for a month of free movie rentals. That campaign worked.

"[Linking mobile to outdoor media] provides 100 percent trackability where traditional out-of-home can't, which is our Achilles' heel," Ms. Alexander said.