By Guy Yaniv

Every advertising medium has its own unique characteristics, and advertisers invest significant resources learning how to adapt their message to derive maximum benefit from each medium's distinctive advantages.

Mobile phones are becoming the most widespread digital device. This, combined with an increasingly crowded communication space, is creating pressure on advertisers to look for ways to be innovative and different.

It was only a matter of time until the attention of advertisers would turn to mobile. One of the most important lessons to be learned is that the mobile medium is significantly different in many ways from other advertising mediums.

Really mobile advertising?
The lines between mobile marketing and mobile advertising are blurred.

Some advertisers have been including mobile as one more element in a mass-market approach for several years now. It is used, in many cases, as a part of campaigns that are integrated across several media channels -- radio, television, Internet and mobile -- aimed at increasing the number of ears and eyes that are exposed to a campaign and increasing the level of interactivity.

For example, a billboard might suggest that the user send an SMS text message to a short code to receive additional information or to win something.

But examination of many of today's mobile marketing campaigns reveal that they largely use formats borrowed from other advertising platforms -- TV, Internet and gaming -- and that they rarely leverage the unique characteristics and capabilities of the mobile medium.

Take WAP banners, for example.

With more consumers surfing the Web through their mobile devices, many advertisers simply extend their Internet banners to be WAP banners as well. If you ask these advertisers, they would probably insist that they are engaged in mobile advertising. But are they really?

The difference
Over time, savvy advertisers will learn to leverage and better use the unique characteristics of mobile advertising, which is in many ways still in its infancy.

Those making the effort to get to know the mobile medium a little better are discovering a broad range of innovative possibilities enabled by mobile advertising.

Wireless carriers possess a unique wealth of user information: age, gender, mobile spending, family status, interests, social network, analysis and predications of behaviors, location and usage history.

The mobile medium is used for many types of communications and entertainment. This variety puts many communication channels at the advertiser's disposal, creating a rich, multichannel inventory that can bring advertising to the user through voice, messaging, browsing and video platforms.

Different channels can vary in their level of effectiveness with different audiences.

While one consumer may not watch TV and can be reached effectively through a highway billboard on his way to work, another may hardly watch video on his mobile but is a heavy voice applications user, and may be better reached through voice channels such as pre-call and ring-back tone.

These unique attributes give advertisers new levels of precision in terms of targeting and reach. The ads are no longer served in a relatively random way -- they can now be fully targeted, personalized and delivered to an individual and precisely defined user segment.

Jaguar races ahead
In a recent mobile advertising campaign, luxury automaker Jaguar created a mobile WAP site promoting its new XF Sedan.

The company also used banner ads to help steer more than 140,000 unique visitors to the site where one feature allowed users to insert their ZIP code and locate the nearest dealer.

This campaign successfully took into account some of the unique mobile attributes and delivered impressive results, with 2.6 percent of participants locating their nearest dealer to arrange a test drive. Despite the strong results, more can be done.

Greater cooperation with a carrier can add more information to the equation, such as location and behavioral information including identifying avid car people.

The carrier actually knows not only where the target individual lives, but also where he or she is at the moment.

Therefore, the user can effortlessly receive immediate and exact information on where the nearest dealer is located.

The user will not be required to enter any information -- for example, inserting ZIP code -- thereby enjoying a hassle-free experience. The fewer the hassles, the greater the chances of user participation.

Since the mobile phone is a communication device that is always with the user, interactivity, immediacy and ease of response are very high, enabling a strong call to action through click-to-call ads, for example.

These attributes, combined with highly relevant ads, significantly increase the chances of user responsiveness, which in turn will lead to higher ROI.

Privacy cautions
Because of the amount of information that can be extracted by the carrier, some consumer privacy issues come to mind when considering mobile advertising. Those issues can be addressed through user incentives.

To encourage users to opt in and agree to receive advertising, carriers can offer consumers persuasive incentives -- free SMS and free airtime. This creates a whole new relationship between the advertiser and the consumer. No longer are the ads viewed as disruptive and annoying.

The fact that the advertisements are highly targeted and tailored to user interests can make the "being advertised to" experience a welcome one -- users actually want to provide information on themselves -- which mitigates many privacy concerns.

Mobile is an innovative advertising platform that can really make a difference to the advertiser.
To rise above the clutter, it is important to take into account the medium's distinctive attributes and use them to take the relationship with the end-user to a whole new level.

Guy Yaniv is vice president and general manager of Comverse Mobile Advertising, Tel Aviv, Israel. Reach him at .